Skip to main content
Cyrano, Bristol Old Vic
Outstanding new version of a tragi-comic classic
PIC CAP A nose for love: Cyrano (Tristan Sturrock) with Roxane (Sara Powell) Pic: Geraint Lewis

NUMEROUS versions of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play about the hot-blooded 17th-century swordsman, poet and philosopher, cursed with a nose of excessive proportions, have filled hours of stage and film time.

This latest version by Bristol Old Vic is a fun-filled, triumphant addition.

With a nod to commedia dell’arte, Peter Oswald’s translation and Tom Morris’s direction inject a lightness of touch, while  contemporary references shift the production away from any specific time period.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
woman
Theatre review / 19 February 2025
19 February 2025
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
home
Theatre review / 18 February 2025
18 February 2025
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
antigone
Theatre Review / 4 February 2025
4 February 2025
SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices
12th night
Theatre Review / 13 December 2024
13 December 2024
SIMON PARSONS questions whether a dark take on Shakespeare’s Seasonal comedy is in harmony with the original text
Similar stories
mermaid
Theatre Review / 12 December 2024
12 December 2024
SIMON PARSONS is swept away on the running tide of a dynamic new version of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale
never
Theatre Review / 7 November 2024
7 November 2024
SIMON PARSONS applauds a moving version of Ishiguro’s vision of a world in which science and ethics have diverged
baby
Theatre Review / 12 June 2024
12 June 2024
SIMON PARSONS applauds a new drama that pays tribute to the hundreds of women who volunteered to develop IVF
glass
Theatre review / 9 May 2024
9 May 2024
SIMON PARSONS marvels at a production of Williams’s early masterpiece that transforms the play into a symbolic slow dance of tensions, fears and desires