Reviews West End & Central Published 6 June 2014

Antony and Cleopatra

Globe Theatre ⋄ 17th May - 24th August 2014

Small-scale, knockabout affection.

Tom Wicker

Oh, Tony and Cleo – can’t live with each other, can’t live without each other. But how will this middle-aged pair of squabbling lovebirds cope when Tony’s wife dies and he leaves her in Egypt and hotfoots it back to Rome? Will he slip a ring on someone else’s finger? Will Cleo’s suspicions get the better of her? For that poor servant’s sake, you’d better hope not! Whatever else happens, it’s guaranteed to be a laugh-a-minute. So get yourself along to the Globe!

Jonathan Munby’s period-dress production of Antony & Cleopatra is basically the play reconfigured as a sitcom. It’s a bit like an actually funny My Family set in Ancient Egypt, with a gruff Clive Wood and sparky Eve Best ringing every ounce of humour from the verse as the Roman general and his Queen of the Nile. It’s infectiously entertaining – a raucously engaging, dance-filled romp through Shakespeare that leaves the epic scale of its legendary lovers at the bedroom door. That’s its strength, but also its weakness.

Best is undoubtedly one of the most instantly likeable and charismatic actors on stage today. Here, she makes for a vain but endearingly playful Cleopatra, her fits of rage tempered by wry self-awareness and sudden indecision. She’s neither exotic temptress nor arch manipulator, but bright, restless, over-indulged and quite often bored. Together, she and Wood chip away the accretions of history to give us real people rather than distant portraits. Their nearness feels refreshing.

What we get in the first half is a picture of bickering domesticity superimposed on two of the most powerful empires of the ancient world. Cleopatra’s servants are like exasperated sisters, while Jolyon Coy’s brilliantly conniving Octavius Caesar is the uptight upstart to Wood’s craggy Mark Antony. The cast are great at conveying these dynamics, often with little more than a raised eyebrow or over-emphatic handshake. Every forced, insincere conversation between Coy and Swift is a pissing contest.

But the production’s close-up focus on such moments – as beautifully observed and funny as they are – sees the detail of the play’s wider terrain begin to blur. The epic sweep of the story, Antony and Caesar’s descent from uneasy alliance to all-out war, gets lost along the way. And warm wit is replaced by glibness as Cleopatra rolls her eyes at the weight of a dying Antony. What began as light-footed ends up feeling too lightweight to make us care when we should.

In the end, what’s missing from this enjoyable production is a proper sense of passion. Particularly in the second half, the tone is pitched too low for the play’s high stakes – including Phil Daniels’ muted impact as a guilt-ridden Enobarbus. As Antony and Cleopatra, Wood and Best have lovely chemistry but their small-scale, knockabout affection lacks the enormity of desire necessary to give the tragedy they bring about – to everyone around them – real weight. Sometimes, bigger is best.

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Tom Wicker

Tom is a freelance writer and editor, based in London. He has acted in the past, but the stage is undoubtedly better off without him on it. As well as regularly contributing to Exeunt and OffWestEnd.com, he reviews for Time Out, has reviewed Broadway productions for The Telegraph. He has also written for The Guardian and the online world affairs magazine openDemocracy.

Antony and Cleopatra Show Info


Directed by Jonathan Munby

Cast includes Eve Best, Phil Daniels, Clive Wood, Jolyon Coy, Sirine Saba, Ignatius Anthony, Peter Bankole, Jonathan Bonnici, Philip Correia, Kammy Darweish, Paul Hamilton, James Hayes, Rosie Hilal, Daniel Rabin, Obioma Ugoala

Link http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/

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