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Titus Andronicus review — Simon Russell Beale doesn't get the blood pumping

Titus Andronicus review — Simon Russell Beale doesn't get the blood pumping

Times30-04-2025
'Blood and revenge are hammering in my head' goes the line from Titus Andronicus the RSC have shoved to the top of the publicity for this new revival. It promises something visceral, busy, berserk even. And the drains at the side of the thrust stage at the Swan in Stratford, with screens protecting the front row from the blood and bodies set to be deposited there, suggests artfully horrible things ahoy.
All this and Simon Russell Beale in the title role too. His faded Roman warrior will see two sons killed and a daughter raped and mutilated. He will hack off his own hand too before finally feeding his enemy's sons to her in a pie. Shakespeare's first and bloodiest tragedy is brutal, and bananas.
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