CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
No’s Knife
The Old Vic, London SE1
2/5
ACCOMPLISHED Samuel Beckett actress Lisa Dwan scales the heights of ambition by interpreting the great playwright’s Texts For Nothing, a selection of prose works never intended for the stage.
Delivering them in a four-part, 70-minute monologue with no interval, Dwan is first seen trapped in the crevice of a rock face before prowling around a wasteland and then perching herself on high, as if encased in a birdcage.
EWAN CAMERON witnesses a political farce that lacks a clear message
GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship



