”Titus Andronicus” review – wait ’til the tabloids get a load of this

You can almost imagine the trembling tabloid news writer’s fingertips on the keyboard: first Wokeo and Juliet, then playing around with Joan of Arc – now what are the Globe’s snowflakes up to – staging Shakespeare’s bloodiest play without any BLOOD? An all-women and non-binary cast – as in NO MEN? AND TRIGGER WARNINGS?? Sweating, flushed and excited, they bash out 300 hasty words and hit send – waiting for the inevitable pat on the back from Mr Murdoch. Job done.

Anyway. It’s hard not to think about the baffling media reaction to some of the Globe’s recent shows (something that artistic director Michelle Terry has even spoken openly about) during director Jude Christian’s wilfully irreverent take on Titus Andronicus – which jettisons wholesale portions of the original text to create a pretty left-field re-interpretation of the bodycount-heavy tragedy, recounting a brutal civil conflict involving all manner of flagellation, murder and other crimes. It’s a pretty solid reminder that George R R Martin is merely following in the Bard’s footsteps.

It might not have the same funky irreverance as Taylor Mac’s Titus spin-off Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (now there’s one the tabloids would get het up about), but some juicy themes blaze away underneath the overall conceit – namely the fragility and futility of human life (lives of both humans and flies are blown out with the same puff of a candle) in a tale that sidesteps morality in favour of abject nihilism.

Christian book-ends both acts with new musical numbers (one involving an unorthodox story of an unbirthing rabbit) performed by the show’s ensemble with a meta-theatrical mania (“Torture porn but more artistic…this is Shakespeare’s Globe, not HBO.”).

Which brings us to the candles – every character carries one as a symbol of their own mortality – death brings a sudden extinguishment of flame. While their use rises slightly above gimmick-level (the clear phallic implications are also apt in a play where sex is exclusively portrayed in a destructive, aggressive context), they are often clean, unassertive objects that flit across the stage pretty unconsequentially. Then again, many characters, bumped off after a mere matter of lines, also feel equally unsubstantial.

One of the strongest aspects of the show has to be the cast – from Lucy McCormick’s irate emperor Saturninus (think the lovechild of Aegon and Joffrey, Game of Thrones fans) through to Beau Holland (who plays eight characters, all of whom meet a grizzly end) stealing scenes even when playing the aforementioned fly. Katy Stephen’s tortured titular Titus is a stoic presence, playing it pretty straight in a show that is chock full of bells and whistles.