Theatre review: Game of Thrones: The Mad King

In the latest attempt to plug the Les Mis-shaped hole in their budget the RSC have taken a break from Celebrity Antisemite Roal Dahl and moved on to Celebrity Pirate George Arrr! Arrr! Martin, and his A Song of Ice and Fire saga. And Stratford-upon-Avon seems an apt enough home for a story conceived as a fantasy version of the Wars of the Roses since Shakespeare wrote eight* plays about them. And with roughly the same amount of concern for historical accuracy. Game of Thrones Colon The Mad King is the most immediate prequel to the original novels and Game of Thrones TV series yet, and fleshes out events known from the stories but not previously told in this much detail. And there's... certainly no shortage of detail in a play with a cast bigger than some West End musicals and a running time that just scrapes in under the four-hour mark.

So the titular mad king is Aerys II Targaryen (Michael Shaeffer,) ruling Westeros after centuries of his family sitting the Iron Throne, kept there by the power of their dragons. But the creatures now appear to have gone extinct, and without them maybe a capricious dictator with a twisted sense of humour doesn't need to be accepted as inevitable.

A conspiracy is growing to kill the king and crown his son Rhaegar (Noah Ritter) in his place, a comparatively noble and level-headed member of the in-bred dynasty. The main action begins at a jousting tourney, where the Stark brothers Brandon (Luke Brady,) Eddard (Michael Abubakar) and Benjen (Miles Barrow) are taking their sister Lyanna (Harmony Rose-Bremner) to meet the man she's been betrothed to in a political alliance, Callum Woodhouse's Robert Baratheon.

At the tourney the king makes an unexpected appearance to make fun of the recent death of Robert's parents, while Rhaegar and Lyanna fall in love and run away together, robbing him of his fiancée. The double insult prompts a change in the direction of the conspiracy, which now starts to consider getting rid of the Targaryens altogether and replacing them with Robert as king.

So no, this is probably not a great jumping-on point for anyone who wasn't already familiar with Grrm's universe, and even with me knowing the general story and many of the central characters Duncan Macmillan's play can feel confusing and dense, especially at the start. Although having just watched all three seasons so far of House of the Dragon, where all the sides are different branches of the Targaryen family, at least this multi-family saga is easier to follow than one where everyone's got the same blond frightwig and all the women are called Rhaena, Rhaenys, Rhaenerys, Rhaenée & Rhaenato.

With just over a month's run for a show with such an obvious huge budget a London run must be hoped for, and presumably in a purpose-built or specially adapted space, as Chloe Lamford's cross-shaped stage, one of the most notable things about the production, is a bit of an awkward fit to the RST: I was reminded of the line from The Producers: "You've all heard of Theatre in the Round? You're looking at the man who invented Theatre in the Square! Nobody had a good seat!" At least if I leaned forwards I could see the Iron Throne when it popped out of the stage, but only just.

To be fair for the most part Dominic Cooke's production manages to keep the action fairly central and visible, with the convoluted political intrigue of the story being interspersed with spectacle in the form of pageantry, jousting and battles - although there's a couple of grisly death scenes anyone who's mainly into the TV shows for the notorious gratuitous gore and nudity will be disappointed: The only person to get their tits out is Luke Brady, though to be fair that's going to be the right choice in most circumstances.

Among all this testosterone the second act does give the women more of a chance to make their mark, as Elizabeth Ayodele's Princess Elia, Mariah Gale's Queen Rhaella and Tanisha Spring's Ashara Dayne try to find a way out of being just pawns in the men's power plays. Both acts have moments that really shine with energy and intrigue, as well as others where the sheer amount of story and characters bloat the action - Maxim Ays' Jaime Lanister was always going to have to turn up for plot purposes, but a couple of major recurring characters are clearly there for fan-service alone.

Overall this doesn't feel like a pure cash-in, the RSC lending not only kudos but also the experience of the cast and creative teams to take dragons and magic seriously without looking ridiculous. It doesn't convince that it would ever have needed to exist without the hype over the franchise either, but for those of us who enjoy the books and shows it's an enjoyable enough addition. Unless you're only in it for the tits and the head-squishing, in that case you're out of luck.

Game of Thrones: The Mad King by Duncan Macmillan, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin, is booking until the 5th of September at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Running time: 3 hours 50 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.

*if you count buildup and fallout as part of the story