RSC Julius Caesar

[Pulcinella]

A pretty poor review in Wednesday's Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/julius-caesar-review-shakespeare-stripped-of-nobility-vwt272b6t?shareToken=d63ba64eab747a4cc76ce67fcd2f7840

but an even worse one in today's Sunday Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-rscs-julius-caesar-shakespeare-so-bad-youll-laugh-d282pndfl?shareToken=2fde8e265ca53ae8de0740d24e9c33a4

A shame, as it's going on tour (and is scheduled to come to York).

[french frank]

Have you booked your seats yet?

I wonder whether a novel approach to classic productions might be to analyse what is great about such works and accounts for their longevity, and try to bring it out and present it persuasively to the audience?

A pretty poor review in Wednesday's Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/julius-caesar-review-shakespeare-stripped-of-nobility-vwt272b6t?shareToken=d63ba64eab747a4cc76ce67fcd2f7840

but an even worse one in today's Sunday Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-rscs-julius-caesar-shakespeare-so-bad-youll-laugh-d282pndfl?shareToken=2fde8e265ca53ae8de0740d24e9c33a4

A shame, as it's going on tour (and is scheduled to come to York).

[Cockney Sparrow]

even worse one in today's Sunday Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-rscs-julius-caesar-shakespeare-so-bad-youll-laugh-d282pndfl?shareToken=2fde8e265ca53ae8de0740d24e9c33a4

A shame, as it's going on tour (and is scheduled to come to York).

I wish I hadn't clicked on that link - in principle I don't read contributions by that 'journalist'/scribbler, so I quickly quit.

I wonder - does he have any credentials as a theatre critic?

I regard his "Humour" as arrested development prep-school bonhomie - in the political sketch - just another explaining away of the nasty party. I just wish he would go back to the Daily Hate where he can be ignored, and serve his natural readership.

[Pulcinella]

Have you booked your seats yet?

I wonder whether a novel approach to classic productions might be to analyse what is great about such works and accounts for their longevity, and try to bring it out and present it persuasively to the audience?

No, thankfully.

Your 'wonder' might be a good point for an academic argument/seminar discussion, but presumably it's on an exam syllabus somewhere, and my 'wonder' is what a class of school kids will get out of seeing such a perverse production, especially if it's the only one they might ever get see, and they are unlikely to be in a position to be able to present arguments for and against.

[Pulcinella]

I wish I hadn't clicked on that link - in principle I don't read contributions by that 'journalist'/scribbler, so I quickly quit.

I wonder - does he have any credentials as a theatre critic?

I regard his "Humour" as arrested development prep-school bonhomie - in the political sketch - just another explaining away of the nasty party. I just wish he would go back to the Daily Hate where he can be ignored, and serve his natural readership.

Possibly as many as we have to be music critics, and we do a pretty good job of that.
Mind you, we don't get paid for our scribblings.

[gurnemanz]

JC has never one of my favourite Shakespeare plays and this does seem to be another RSC to miss. We used to go to Stratford fairly often but the recent very worth seeingTempest was our first visit for quite a while.

[smittims]

If the reviews are really bad that could turn it into a sell-out, as happened with Peter O'Toole's Old Vic 'Macbeth', whihc was so notorious people just had to see it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

If the reviews are really bad that could turn it into a sell-out, as happened with Peter O'Toole's Old Vic 'Macbeth', whihc was so notorious people just had to see it.

That was largely because of the comedy value of seeing a screen legend drunkenly murdering a classic.
I did see O’Toole in Jeffrey Barnard Is Unwell. It was typecasting as he was playing a notorious drunk but as far as I could tell O’Toole was sober throughout.He was excellent in it.

[ChandlersFord]

Julius Caesar is a weak play, which fatally loses momentum after Caesar is killed. This production does sound awful, I must say, but then today’s RSC is a master butcher when it comes to its patron’s plays.

[DracoM]

Many of the reviews were frankly too kind, IMO.