JULIUS CAESAR is a power play, here played out as a "fast-paced modern political thriller" that will resonate in the corridors of Millbank and on the streets of Baghdad, post-Saddam Hussein.

It is the set text of Shakespeare's political plays, making it an apt choice for the Royal Shakespeare Company's latest mobile auditorium show, which puts education at the core of its provincial tour.

David Farr's contemporary production is a show du jour; he talks of wanting to find a way in which the play will resonate with today's audience. So he dresses it in modish detail: amid the crackle of gunfire and dissonant hiss of radio and television broadcasts, the cast is seen to "invade" the auditorium to "be honest about the fact that it's a play and to facilitate the audience becoming actively involved". The company stands as one, each putting on a jacket to further establish that this is theatre and all are now in character.

That seems an unnecessary gimmick. Point one: we know we have not turned up at Hambleton Leisure Centre for a swim or a pilates session. Point two: a play's contemporary resonance lies in its abiding truths, and not in a director's artifice.

Come the crunch, Shakespeare's talk of honour, honesty, tyrannical power and over-ambition will strike home, making us think of Blair and Brown, Mandelson and Milburn, Iraq and Putin's Russia.

Far more effective in Farr's multi-media presentation is his media-savvy setting. The bloated head of Christopher Saul's Caesar beams down from a screen at the start, and a camera is always at hand, broadcasting Caesar's speeches throughout Rome, as he stands like Bush at a press conference, surrounded by his monkeys.

"I believe that today's media images are like the statues of Rome - instruments and icons of power," says Farr, and his motif has an accumulative impact, as does Keith Clouston's futuristic, jagged soundscapes.

Yet the blood and guts of a play will always be its human drama, and if the overall tone of the acting is stentorian, there are superlative performances from Gary Oliver's Mark Antony, Zubin Varla's Marcus Brutus and Adrian Schiller's Caius Cassius.

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Updated: 10:58 Wednesday, September 15, 2004