National Theatre Live: Coriolanus

In Rome the people are hungry and the grain store is shut. Caius Marcius is a soldier: supreme in war, mute in politics. After his victory against the city of the Volsci he is given the name Coriolanus and put forward for consul. To take it he must stand before the people and ask for their votes. He cannot; he despises them and does not hide it. He is banished. Then he goes to his enemy and marches on his own city. Josie Rourke directs. Tom Hiddleston plays Coriolanus, Mark Gatiss plays Menenius and Deborah Findlay plays his mother Volumnia. This is a record of a theatre production: the staging at the Donmar Warehouse in London was broadcast live to cinemas, and the recording is of that. The auditorium is very small and the design is plain: a ladder, a few chairs and red paint on a wall. The possibility of close shots comes from that scale. Coriolanus is among Shakespeare's least staged plays and his politically most uncomfortable; it defends neither the hero nor the people. The relation between mother and son is at the centre; Volumnia raised him as a soldier and still makes his decisions. The fighting and the whipping are physically hard and shot at close range at theatre scale. Who it is for: viewers who like Shakespeare and recorded theatre. Who it is not for: it runs close to three hours, the language is demanding, and expecting a cinematic narrative from a stage recording would be a mistake.