The philospher king

What happens if you apply the logic of existentialism to a political system? That's the question Albert Camus asks in this rarely performed play written in 1940.

Distraught at the death of his beloved sister Drusilla, the emperor Caligula decides to free his people from the lie of a meaningful existence. As a dictator, he sets about killing people at random and stealing their money, countering the many objections of his patricians with philosophical reason, and not a little madness.

In trying to deny the possibility for love and conscience, Caligula partially resembles Macbeth. Michael Sheen's preening, narcissistic Caligula, however, makes a piece of theatre out of his wanton nihilism, taking on mortality with fantastical displays of cruelty and showmanship. Yet he leaves us in no doubt of his despair, and that both haunts and fuels what becomes a furious kamikaze fight against everything that is bigger than him.

David Greig's witty, lucid translation makes light work of some of Camus's more complex ideas, while Michael Grandage's thrilling staging - all gleaming gold and silver walls, pools of water and strong music - adds a compelling sense of spectacle.

If there's a weakness, it's that Camus's intellectual arguments run out before the play does. Sheen, however, runs the gamut as Caligula. And it's great to see existentialism rescued from chin-stroking irrelevance.

Caligula