REVIEW: JULIUS CAESAR by William Shakespeare at Omnibus Theatre 29 Oct – 15 Nov 2025

‘a tremendous stab at doing something new with a play that the best directors of every generation have tried to adapt to their purposes’ ★★★

“There was a Brutus once that would have brooked

“The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome

“As easily as a king.”

Julius Caesar is the best political play ever written; or at least the best I know of. It shows us that people do the same sorts of thing in pursuit of power, whether they live in a contemporary liberal democracy, a modern dictatorship, or a medieval kingdom. Shakespeare, who had never seen a democracy or lived in a republic, wrote a play which could easily be about Donald Trump, with the leader wanting to steal the state, to make his rule permanent and absolute, and to stifle all competing sources of power; to be a king. If I ever direct this play, it will be about Trump. That’s why JC is so frequently performed in modern dress. Its descriptions of political methods are as contemporary as The West Wing. The arguments Cassius uses to bring Brutus into the conspiracy to kill Caesar mirror how our politicians behave to each other. Caesar’s vacillation about whether to come to the Senate, combined with his firm declarations that he never vacillates, are the behaviours of every weak leader who wants to look strong. 

And the extraordinary speech by Mark Anthony, in which he turns a hostile crowd into an ugly gang that will do exactly as he tells them, is a masterclass in political propaganda. I do not know whether Joseph Goebbels was familiar with it, but I think it is very likely.  So when I hear that a new theatre company is doing something interesting with JC, I’m inclined to go along and see what it is. Tangle’s claim to have “a high energy African-inspired adaptation” was enough for me to get my passport out and travel from North London all the way to South London.

High energy and African inspired it certainly was. As we walked into the auditorium, there on the stage was a round disc upon which slept an African warrior, who woke as the house lights went down, and had no rest for the next two hours. Yaw Osafo-Kantanka was the hardest worked actor in the production. Though he is billed as simply playing the soothsayer, he is given lines that Shakespeare gave to other characters, included Casca’s wonderful speech about the storm: “Are you not moved when all the sway of earth / Shakes like a thing unfirm?” For my taste, he was a little over-used, but that does not detract from his performance, which was tremendous – tireless, energetic, charismatic and committed.

Directors often set JC in different contexts, countries and times because it works, and Anna Coombs is no exception.  Her time and place are not clearly defined, but the lines as written serve her purpose very well, and the only change I noticed was to accommodate the fact that she had a female Cassius. I have always thought the Brutus-Cassius relationship would work well with a female Cassius: the Bridge Theatre proved it a few years ago, and it is proved again here, aided by an excellent Cassius (Samya De Meo) – not the cynical manipulator we are used to, but a true republican, genuinely appalled by looming dictatorship. Her Brutus (Remiel Farai) was a little less assured, I suspect because he has limited experience of speaking Shakespearean verse. Sadly the night I saw it, the actor playing the crucial part of Mark Anthony was ill. Samater Ahmed did a thoroughly professional job of standing in for him, script in hand.

A clever touch was to have Caesar and Octavius Caesar played by the same actor (Roland Royal 111 – young, attractive, charismatic, dangerous) – thus cleverly making the point that after all that bloodshed, we just get more of the same. So did it all work? Sort of. It’s a tremendous stab at doing something new with a play that the best directors of every generation have tried to adapt to their purposes, but its weakness is not knowing exactly what political point it wanted to make. I felt the noise and music and pyrotechnics were not used to a political purpose, so they blunted the play’s sharp political edge. 

JULIUS CAESAR by William Shakespeare, adapted and directed by Anna Coombs, produced by Tangle Theatre Company at Omnibus Theatre in Clapham

Box Office https://www.omnibus-clapham.org/julius-caesar-2/

CAST: Samya De Meo / Remiel Farai / Yaw Osafo-Kantanka / John Pfumojena / Roland Royal III

Photography: Stuart Martin