Game of Thrones: The Mad King
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
⭑⭑☆☆☆

A PREQUEL to the HBO’s epic fantasy phenomenon that pushed back the parameters of censorship, gleaned numerous awards and gathered a massive fan base sounds like a no-brainer as far as bums on seats go.

A feuding kingdom run by a mad, Lear-like king with serious family issues and a mystical prophesy based on a dragon-fuelled history sounds meat enough for any show but proves too much for the Royal Shakespeare Company to digest.

The main house, largely the domain of Shakespeare productions, has been transformed into theatre in the round with a traverse stage dominated by designer Chloe Lamford’s towering metal arch and giant fortress gates, a promising setting for what proves to be a 220-minute test of endurance.

The hard working cast of almost 40, Georgia McGuinness’s fabulous costumes and some magnificent puppetry can not stop this bowdlerised production from being little more than a repetitive sequence of theatrical cliches. Numerous battles fought in thunderous clamour and stop start blackouts, sex stripped of any sexuality and Duncan MacMillan’s trite script relying heavily on Shakespearean plots and language with none of the bard’s poetry, proves to be melodramatic twaddle.

Dominic Cooke has his cast racing back and forward, appearing amongst the audience and freezing in tableaux during dances and scuffles for the first 45 minutes while the medieval-style factions lay out their cards for the complex plot. Only then do the internecine wars unleash a trail of stylised battles, political wheeling and dealing and unerotic relationships that makes one question the purpose of an intimacy director, grind into a relentless higher gear.

With The Odyssey now showing at cinemas and being of similar length and with comparable themes, one realises that the epic fantasy worlds of these stories is primarily the territory of page and screen and not easily or often successfully transferred to the stage.

This does not mean that the production will not fulfil its obvious intention of ticket sales with an international audience champing at the bit to get another slice of George RR Martin’s visionary world and the current run already sold out, but Macbeth’s denouncement of life as being “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” is probably the most apposite description for this lame production.

Runs until September 5. Box office: 01789 331 111, rsc.org.uk