{"id":732901,"date":"2026-08-09T22:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/732901\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T22:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:44:09","slug":"game-of-thrones-the-mad-king-review-an-action-packed-saga-of-dry-ice-and-fire-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/732901\/","title":{"rendered":"Game of Thrones: The Mad King review \u2013 an action-packed saga of dry ice and fire | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the RSC\u2019s 65 years, numerous Lears have lost their minds and frequent Caesars been slaughtered by their courts. Now, though, a tyrant new to its stages faces both fates. He is King Aerys II Targaryen, ancestor of one warring bloodline in Game of Thrones<\/a>, the dramatisation of George RR Martin\u2019s A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels that helped TV streamers\u2019 rise to global domination during eight HBO seasons from 2011 to 2019.<\/p>\n

Some may balk at an institution named for England\u2019s greatest dramatist staging an American drama franchise. There is, though, a compelling economic imperative: rising costs due to current wars<\/a> (a frequent problem for Martin\u2019s ancient oligarchs too) and Covid-era debts now exacerbated by paying back government loans means that the RSC could use another big commercial transfer \u2013 as its musical Matilda<\/a> may not be immortal.<\/p>\n

Chloe Lamford\u2019s striking sacred tree \u2026 Noah Ritter as Prince Rhaegar Targaryen in Game of Thrones: The Mad King. Photograph: Johan Persson<\/p>\n

There is also an artistic rationale. Martin has always credited Shakespeare\u2019s English history plays as a model. Dramatist Duncan Macmillan<\/a> \u2013 starting from an unexplored reference in the books to a consequential tournament in this universe in 281AC (after conquest) \u2013 and director Dominic Cooke bow even deeper to the presiding genius: Michael Shaeffer\u2019s King Aerys, with long white beard and flower-braided hair, strongly resembles Laurence Olivier\u2019s television Lear.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to read the entrails of a raven to guess the target of the title The Mad King: the various Brutuses plotting his fall conclude that the \u201cparanoid and delusional\u201d monarch will destroy their civilisation. The focus, though, is not just Trumpian. Macmillan references two wider international crises \u2013 the instability of heads of state and the weather \u2013 and a UK national concern: the endurance of a royal bloodline. The RSC\u2019s patron, King Charles III, might skip this one.<\/p>\n

There are already two HBO prequels \u2013 House of the Dragon<\/a> and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms<\/a> \u2013 but while those are set up to 200 years before the TV series, Macmillan\u2019s is a much closer prologue. That is a harder task, as he must match up with the season one box set. Fans will be attracted by back stories of telly-legendary characters: one young man is addressed as Eddard Stark, but pleads to be known as Ned. Two leads in the main TV show are babies at the end of the RSC\u2019s three hours and 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

Macmillan\u2019s dialogue is quasi-Shakespearean with a rough iambic beat. A heavily pregnant princess is \u201coverloaded with the hopes of the realm\u201d. One of many violently bereaved characters tells another: \u201cIf a beloved has been wrenched from you, then we are fellow countrymen.\u201d The problem comes when this plausible pastiche of Elizabethan politicking collides with Martin\u2019s supernaturalism.<\/p>\n

Visceral \u2026 Elizabeth Ayodele as Princess Elia Martell and Tanisha Spring as Ashara Dayne in Game of Thrones: The Mad King. Photograph: Johan Persson<\/p>\n

The steeds of puppetry and movement directors Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell \u2013 vast skeletal frames manipulated by squads of actors \u2013 carry characters in rather too many jousts and battles. Dogs and dragons are similarly simulated. But whatever the efforts and budgets expended, theatre can\u2019t match the stunning dollars-to-burn televisual atmospherics. Chloe Lamford\u2019s set, though, includes a striking sacred tree, intermittently formed by a huge trunk rising to dock with flowered foliage descending. Real flames and mock fog frequently swirl on a cruciform walkway that quarters the stalls of the Royal Shakespeare theatre: a scene of dry ice and fire.<\/p>\n

Actors in adaptations of screen material \u2013 such as the current The Silence of the Lambs<\/a> \u2013 can choose whether to be avatars of the TV or film stars. Here, the performers must be plausible previews of their future television inheritors. Maxim Ays as Jaime Lannister, Michael Abubakar\u2019s Ned Stark, the Cersei Lannister of Daisy Franks and Hughie O\u2019Donnell\u2019s Lord Varys might all be earlier portraits of the famous, but youth and new lines leave leeway for their own intonations. Even so, the greatest impact is made by characters featured in the main TV show only in dialogue or flashback: Princess Elia Martell and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, viscerally played by Elizabeth Ayodele and Noah Ritter.<\/p>\n

The play\u2019s end intriguingly leaves a 14-year gap until the TV series, perhaps allowing for more instalments. Purists will object that, rather than staging Shakespeare-adjacent populist spin-offs, the RSC should be offering its house dramatist\u2019s royal dramas plain. The counter argument is that hitching on to a cultural juggernaut may bring in new sources of income and audiences.<\/p>\n

The review star system can struggle with shows that some might sell their house to see but others would be reluctant to leave home for. This feels like a five-star production for most devoted throners but a three-star for those who haven\u2019t seen the TV series. Thereby, to channel this show\u2019s infectious tones, the Judging One has trod a path between those stellar prophecies.<\/p>\n

At Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon<\/a>, until 5 September<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the RSC\u2019s 65 years, numerous Lears have lost their minds and frequent Caesars been slaughtered by their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-732901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}