REVIEW: Imperium Parts 1 and 2, Gielgud Theatre ✭✭✭✭
Mark Ludmon reviews Imperium, the RSC adaptation by Mike Poulton of Robert Harris’s Cicero novels now playing at the Gielgud Theatre.
Mark Ludmon reviews Imperium, the RSC adaptation by Mike Poulton of Robert Harris’s Cicero novels now playing at the Gielgud Theatre.
Despite being in two parts over something like seven hours, Stephen Daldry’s tight direction of The Inheritance means it never drags, drawing you into these people’s lives and caring about their futures.
What pleasure the play offers comes in the characters Hare has carved from fragments of history. Roger Allam, almost unrecognisable as John Christie, does a superb job, totally transforming himself into a funny, fussy, oddly dressed Opera lover. He makes eccentricity part of the fibre of Christie and superbly shows his extremes: his anger about Glyndebourne when things don’t go his way; his gentle adoration of Audrey; his unflappable belief in the inherent value of Opera as the most sublime aspect of humanity.