Troilus and Cressida
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon

“STILL wars and lechery.” Thus Sheila Reid’s diminutive Thersites, as she crawls and buzzes around the motley lovers and warriors in Troilus and Cressida and her tirades of vituperative invective are a fairly accurate description of our world as much as Shakespeare’s.

 The play has always proved difficult to categorise among Shakespeare’s works. It's certainly not a romantic comedy – there's no happy ending – nor is it a tragedy, as the title characters are still alive at the end. Based on Homer’s epic conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans, it's certainly his most cynical analysis of human relationships in love and war.

Thanks largely to Oliver Ford Davies’s salaciously gleeful Pandarus encouraging his proteges, Gavin Fowler’s naive Troilus and Amber James’ gutsy Cressida — far from reluctant lovers — into bed, Gregory Doran’s production extracts every iota of sour comedy from the scenes in Troy.

In the besieging Greek camp, the gang of posturing combatants contrive to get their main man, Andy Apollo’s reluctant beefcake Achilles, onto the battlefield. There are no admirable characters in what might be seen as a savage farcical observation on the human condition. Even the Trojan’s champion, Daniel Hawksford’s “noble” Hector, recognises the futility of war but is nevertheless betrayed by both the devious Achilles and his own cupidity.

“Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!” These appeals against the noise of battle might just as well have related to Evelyn Glennie’s percussion score that provides an explosive musical commentary throughout the action.

Doran’s extensive gender-blind casting only occasionally hiccups, as when Suzanne Bertish’s Agamemnon welcomes Cressida with a peck on the cheek like a hostess at a dinner party before her comrades wade into the kissing game with lustful enthusiasm. It works surprisingly well, with Adjoa Andoh’s manipulative Ulysses skilfully communicating some of Shakespeare’s densest language.

In word and deed, moral and political corruption threads through the play and Doran’s production evolves so that early audience laughter dies into uneasy apprehension, perhaps echoing today’s anxieties.

Runs until November 17, box office: rsc.org