RSC LIVE 2017- JULIUS CAESAR (REVIEW): When William Returned

LIVE PERFORMANCE

VIEWED IN CINEMA

DATE: 26th APRIL 2017

BY: THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

LOCATION: ROYAL SHAKESPEARE THEATRE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON



If you go to the theatre today you run the risk of hearing the political views of directors and actors, and being subjected to their embarrassingly blue pilled juvenile squarkings about nationalism, Donald Trump, or anything that doesn’t conform to PC, consensus leftist ideology.

Such was the case with this production of Julius Caesar, which was largely very good, but (predictably) tainted at the beginning with a short interview with some of the cast members. So, what did the lefty twits say? Did they call Donald Trump Hitler? Did they call Brexit voters Hitler? Did they call my brother’s dog Hitler? Well, no Hitler references this time, but they had a good old SJW whinge anyway.

Okay, so here’s the bit where you slap your forehead, and endure the pearls of 'wisdom' dropped from the lefty luvvies at the RSC.

Hail Caesar/Trump/Hitler (same thing, isn't it?)

Democratically elected businessman Donald Trump, a man who appears to be playing along with the globalists agenda just like Obama before him, is a potential dictator who probably needs to be assassinated, just like Julius Caesar in the play. Yeah, they went there. Oh, and the role of females in this play was vital (it wasn’t) because Shakespeare gave all of the best lines to the female characters (he didn’t) and if women had ran Rome all of the horrible events that transpire during the play probably wouldn't have happened.

Oh man, the idiocy is strong in the theatre, a strange land of oestrogen empowered make believe where actors and directors see patriarchal dictators everywhere, yet are completely unable to see their own Marxist indoctrinated faces that stare back at themselves in the mirror.

But onto the play, which was very good, and written by a guy who was a bit of a genius, and not a drippy leftist, who would no doubt have been commissioned to write the play if it was created anew today.

The plot is simple, easy to follow, and I can see why it is one of the Shakespeare plays taught in UK schools. A very popular Julius Caesar is returning from another military triumph, and the plebeians of Rome (the ancient equivalent of the voting masses) are demanding he be made an emperor, and given dictatorial powers. The Roman plebeians are unanimous in their passionate devotion towards Caesar by the way, they all love him, so the parallels with nationalist figures like Donald Trump (who are massively divisive) is completely off. Trump built hotels, not battlefields of corpses. He was a businessman, not a soldier. If you want a more accurate parallel with Caesar I'd suggest you look at Oliver Cromwell, and the aftermath of the English Civil War, and for modern parallels of military might and dictatorships look to Erdogan in Turkey, because that situation is ongoing right now.

But, back to the plot.

Caesar is considered too popular/ambitious by a group of conspirators that are close to him, and so they bump him off, speeches happen, the plebeians change their mind, then back again, and the play concludes with the conspirators losing a battle and doing what good Roman soldiers always do when they lose a war.

James Corrigan excels as Mark Antony.

Julius Caesar is all about the speeches given by powerful political figures, and their attempts to manipulate the roman plebians. The most memorable of these speeches is the rhetorical masterclass given by Mark Antony (James Corrigan) as he demonstrates that his rival Brutus (Alex Waldmann) is not all that he claims, repeatedly referring to him as honourable, whilst illustrating that by his very actions he is anything but. The speech is further enhanced by the orator’s claims that he is not very good at speeches, that he’s just a bumbling fool who cannot manipulate with words, and is a simple man who just tells it like it is.

Potential politicians should take note, this is how you do it, this is how you turn a potentially hostile crowd onto your way of thinking, whilst acting like all you are doing is speaking unvarnished truth. And no, this has no parallels with Trump either, sorry libs, it just doesn't. Trump is a symptom, not a cause, and his powers of rhetorical speech are certainly not at the level of Mark Antony. If you want to know the cause, look in that most painful of implements, a mirror.

I want to make a couple of notes about the individual performances and staging, as I saw the production with my mother, and as she has seen (and studied) the play before, her observations hold more weight than my own.

Mum felt that the actor playing Brutus lacked presence, power and charisma, and that his uninspiring performance detracted from the play. I saw the character as weak and wishy-washy, and apparently that’s not what they were going for, so that was a problem. Mum also felt that the scenes with the plebeians were lacking in personal. The speakers talked of large crowds in Rome, and what we saw was ten people shuffling around the stage, so that was a bit off.

Speaking for myself I very much enjoyed the performance of Martin Hutson as Cassius. There was a very human sense of complexity to the motivational drivers behind his actions, and my mother and I were left debating those motivations long into the night. I felt him to be the most fascinating character on stage, the most believably human, and certainly the most memorable. Special mention also goes to the booming voice of Andrew Woodall’s Caesar, and the subtle notes of insecurity in his performance of a man not quite as physically robust as he would like to be for an individual in such a high status position of social elevation.

Martin Hutson's compellingly complex Cassius

It’s always a good time when the main man Shakespeare is in town, and such was the case with this latest production from the RSC. Okay, so you have to deal with the blue pill guzzling actors, directors, audience members, and everybody else involved in it all, but at the core of the experience there is always going to be William Shakespeare.

The social justice, open borders, sovereignty hating, feminised libtards, who control the theatre industry can moan and complain about the rejection of their lefty agenda as much as they want, but what they think doesn’t really matter. What matters is the original Shakespearean text, and when they stick to it (as they did in this production) the words of the master easily transcend childish attempts from contemporary liberals to use the bard as weaponised propaganda against their ideological enemies.

William Shakespeare will, of course, endure long after the current era of regressive insanity fades away to dust, buried in the Highgate cemetery of silly bearded, dangerously wrong ideas. That’s a certainty, and it makes me smile. I always get something out of watching Shakespeare, not from the actors, it’s the words that matter, and when they stick to the words, I’m more than happy to spend a night with the liberals. The RSC began tonight’s performance with words from their actors, and then the master took over, his words revealing truth beyond the narrow political ideological squarkings of our time. Leftist insanity disappeared when William returned, ideas flourished, minds were stimulated, and all was RIGHT with the world again.


Rating: 8/10 (Superior performances from Martin Hutson & James Corrigan, but the star of the show, as always, was Shakespeare himself)

Royals #1- A Message to Marvel Comics

STORY BY

Al Ewing

ART BY

Jonboy Meyers

COLORS BY

Ryan Kinnaird

ReLEASE DATE

5TH APRIL 2017

PUBLISHER

Marvel Comics

‘We forgot the meaning of love’ drones the laughably juvenile dialogue, and off they go into space, a bunch of cutesy lesbians, trusting in some obviously villainous bloke who told them there’s a special ‘magic’ prize hidden at the end of the Care Bear rainbow in space.

And Marvel still doesn’t understand why readers are turning away from their books?

What exact readership demographic is Marvel looking to attract here? After reading Royals #1 I can only assume that it’s the pre-teen girls who are questioning their sexuality demographic, because there’s not a lot in this for anyone else, especially young boys. If I had read this book as a ten year old version of myself then I would have been 100% convinced that I had just accidentally read a girls comic book, and not a very good one either.

Okay Marvel, keep writing girly books where you try to convince everybody (including yourselves) that there’s no difference between the genders, but recognise that these comic books will only ever appeal to social justice warrior activists, and your sales will continue to decline. Do you really want to destroy yourselves with gender neutral love and feelings stories? All you are really doing here is whining that the world isn’t the way that you want it to be, and it’s getting a bit embarrassing.

Marvel, my old mate, it really is getting a bit silly now. You really need to stop with the leftist, race-gender-sexuality activism. The world that you are pushing for is a communistic world of perfect equality, where gender, race, politics, sexuality, religion, and everything else is merged into a creepy Borg collectivist whole of unquestioning love and acceptance. The world, the real world, can never, and will never be like that, and the more you try to achieve your impossible Marxist Nirvana, the worse that things will get for all of us.

Wake up Marvel. Take the red pill option that the rest of us are taking. We are forgiving people, and will look back at this period in your history when you got infiltrated by Marxist activists posing as writers, have a laugh at how silly it all was, and move on.

Get with the times Marvel. Recognise that the world is full of real diversity away from the Marxist deceptions of forced integration and mass immigration into western countries. Celebrate real diversity Marvel, real diversity away from the multicultural lies that are being rejected at the ballot box, in England, America and Europe.

Stop pretending that we are all the same Marvel. Reclaim national pride. America is great. Be proud of who you are. Stop pushing leftist victim groups as heroes. Stop hating on straight, white men. Fire the activist leftists who pose as writers. Get back to telling good stories, with recognisably masculine and feminine characters, who are defined by their actions, and not identity politics and how much of a ‘victim’ they are on the liberal scale of officially sanctioned oppressed groups.

You can do it Marvel. You were great before, and you can be great again. All it will take is a little red pill, a touch of courage, and the ability to recognise that you are walking towards a cliff, and it’s time to stop, change direction, and start walking back home. We are waiting here for you Marvel, we miss you Marvel, and we desperately want you back.


Rating for comic: 2/10 (A load of silly old, irrelevant pap)