'Julius Caesar' by William Shakespeare
4 April 2018We really enjoyed the live screening of Nicholas Hytner’s production of ‘Julius Caesar’ at the new Bridge Theatre in London, which we watched at the Odeon in Milton Keynes a couple of weeks ago. The original reviews of this promenade production, where the audience form the Roman mob, were mixed but I thought it worked stunningly well as a live broadcast. Hand-held cameras gave you the feeling of being right in the middle of the crowd without missing any of the action. And the marshalling of the crowd was incredibly impressive, with discreetly positioned stewards making sure the mass of people parted at exactly the right moment to let the actors through. The cast were great, particularly David Calder as a Trumpian Caesar (complete with ‘Let’s Make Rome Great Again’ baseball cap), David Morrissey as Mark Antony (whose “And Brutus is an honourable man” speech was a political spin masterclass), Michelle Fairley as Cassius and the wonderful Ben Wishaw as Brutus. The modern dress production, which starts with a rock band entertaining the crowd at a political rally, is chillingly believable: the merciless slaughter of Cinna the Poet by the mob was genuinely horrifying. If you get an opportunity to see an ‘encore’ screening I would recommend it.
posted by Robin Simpson @ 3:47 pm
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