Heil Caesar
The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui (Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon) Guest Review by Dr Terror
Blimey! And I thought London was a tourist trap! Whenever I come to this particular Stratford (we have our own), I'm always struck by what mere amateurs we Londoners are at this game. And it's not just Shakespeare: anything English is up for grabs at the souvenir shops...I'm sure the stock of Dobby socks and Hedwig teacups here is far bigger than we have at London's official Harry Potter shop in King's Cross Station.
And yet, despite wearing it's Englishness firmly on its sleeve, Stratford is distinctly cosmopolitan: any amateur Falstaff supping ales in its many, many pubs can then weave through Tudor houses boasting restaurants offering the finest French, Italian, Greek, Indian, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Korean and Japanese dishes while being serenaded by Street performers singing Abba songs. What better setting for this blistering warning from history?
Arturo Ui is, on the surface, a Chicago gangster, given to extortion, torture and muscling in on other people's cauliflower business. That Brecht intended him to represent Hitler is not in the slightest doubt here: as the house rock band keeps things kinetic, incidents and dates flash up on a notice board showing direct parallels between the actions of Hitler and the Nazi party and what is happening on stage. By the end, everyone is in familiar-looking uniforms with distinctive armbands and Mark Gatiss' Ui is shouting and gesticulating like that former house-painter at Nuremberg.
Gatiss steals this, as we all knew he would, but the ensemble cast is astonishing, not least Mawaan Rizwan, who brings such energy to his narrator/barker role that you can't keep your eyes off him. He also has a neat gag which couldn't help reminding me of Armstrong and Miller's ludicrous quiz show How Many Hats? How much do you laugh? Not as much as you might have done a decade ago, before HE got into the White House and you-know-who elbowed all opposition aside (Zac excepted, to some extent) at the local elections. Back then, it was considered staggeringly impolite to compare any politician to Hitler. Here, as the epilogue warns that the bitch that bore Ui is in heat once more, I was reminded of Dan Snow's programme notes for Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club: Hitler's manifesto was essentially Make Germany Great Again.