Review:Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' (Bridge Theatre, London)

by Alex Porter

The Bridge theatre which can be found overlooking the River Thames and Tower Bridge, is the first commercial theatre to be built in central London since 1973. It was set up by Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr, in October 2017 who wanted to open a large theatre that was not in the West End of London. The theatre is very adaptable and it allows productions to be performed in ‘promenade formats’, with reduced seating.

Over the Easter break I was lucky enough to go and see an amazing contemporary production of ‘Julius Caesar’ at ‘the Bridge’ where David Calder (Julius Caesar) David Morrissey (Mark Anthony) and Ben Whishaw (Marcus Brutus) performed brilliantly. 

The production was particularly special as the audience were the crowd/mob in the play and we had to hold up posters, cheer loudly, lie on the floor and also pass a huge sheet of red cloth over our heads when Julius Caesar was arriving triumphantly at the Senate unaware that Brutus and his conspirators were waiting to kill him. Although the production used Shakespeare’s original script, Julius Caesar wore a red baseball cap and Mark Anthony had a track-suit with his name on it which also made the characters mingle with the crowd. Platforms were rising and falling all the time throughout the performance so the crowd had to move as the platforms changed and simple props and clever stage changes were also used so you really felt part of each scene. The production was also very noisy as it had loud sound tracks and explosions throughout; it lasted two hours (without an interval), although the time seemed to pass quickly as the audience had to be so involved in it all. 

The overall meaning/message of the play is really linked to modern day as the assassination of Julius Caesar, followed by chaos and war can be compared with events that can also take place in our modern world today. I enjoyed going to the Bridge Theatre for the first time and hopefully there will be more contemporary productions coming up in the future.