Dominic Cavendish

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Mad King dramatizes the events leading to Robert Baratheon’s accession, including the Harrenhal tournament, Lyanna Stark’s flight with Rhaegar Targaryen and the fall of Aerys II. The nearly four-hour production is praised for its imposing staging, metallic horses, puppeteered dragons and Michael Shaeffer’s electrifying portrayal of the Mad King. Its weaknesses include dense detail, limited grit compared with the television series, effortful puppetry, repetitive combat techniques and recorded rather than live music. Overall, it is judged an impressive and commercially promising Game of Thrones spin-off.

Christiane Jatahy’s experimental production transposes Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People to Brazil and turns the audience into a jury judging doctor Thomas Stockmann over his exposure of pollution and corruption. Wagner Moura gives a compelling, charismatic performance in his UK stage debut, but the review argues that his celebrity status makes Stockmann appear more like a sympathetic VIP than an outsider, undermining the trial’s intended uncertainty. The production’s themes of truth, democracy, groupthink and corporate greed are also judged insufficiently developed, leaving its radicalism more cosmetic than urgent.

Shakespeare’s Globe gives Love’s Labour’s Lost an Iberian makeover, transforming the Princess of France into the Princess of Spain and using flamenco dance, guitar, clapping and singing to animate the play’s romantic sparring. The production’s energy, choreography and comic performances make the adaptation enjoyable, but heavily cut text and Spanish-accented delivery sometimes obscure Shakespeare’s notoriously difficult wordplay. Dominic Cavendish concludes that the staging succeeds overall, while calling for greater clarity.