From Rome to Japan

I did not see the production then and perhaps the far larger space does not suit it. But I was underwhelmed, and the speed with which the cast negotiate some of the knottiest syntax in all Shakespeare makes the journey hard going.

Admittedly, the idea of dispensing with togas and surrendering to kimonos, while likening Coriolanus to a Samurai member of Japan's military aristocracy is brilliantly apt. Ti Green's sparse, murky set with its blood red, back panel, the gaudy satin costumes, Keith Clouston's music of eerie murmurings of flutes and harsh, percussive injunctions, imparts an exhilarating, intriguing air to old Rome.

And for a while Greg Hicks's slight, half-naked frame glistens, drenched with blood as if he comes straight from a Kurosawa film.

Yet the Samurai concept proves merely cosmetic rather than face-lifting. Whether fighting or interrelating, the actors behave as if firmly Anglo-Saxon: Lindsey Fawcett's first citizen bawls hoarsely like a rebellious fifth former.

The use of pistol-shots, which destroy Coriolanus, old-fashioned typewriters, some 20th century costuming and glimpses of Austrian open-air café society are misplaced, too. Greg Hicks does, though, discover an appropriate, icy superciliousness for Coriolanus. With not just his nose in the air, but other crucial body parts like his heart and tongue held aloof, Hicks cuts a wonderfully sneering way through the plebs like an affronted, male Lady Bracknell obliged to have intercourse or at least rub more than shoulders with her inferiors.

Coriolanus's grim pride, reinforced by rage, makes him hurl his chair away in defiance of the plebs, despite the earlier promptings of Richard Cordery's engaging, emollient Menenius. Yet, when faced with Alison Fiske's Volumnia, who ends up with a shriek of despair, but infuriatingly reduces this flinty maker of iron men to a gruff, booming barrage of pleas and complaints, Hicks does not display his Achilles heel - his mother complex - and lacks variety of tone.

His performance is strikingly one-dimensional, too greatly corseted within the frame of narcissistic grandeur. Hicks may rivetingly react to Chuk Iwuji's Tullius's homoerotic embrace like some copulating spider, but has no longer-term engagement with him. In short, his spectacular Coriolanus is too invulnerable, too much in control of himself.

In repertory until 23 August. Box office: 020 7369 1722.

The Complete Works Festival: Coriolanus