With so many neglected plays to choose from, it seems perverse of the RSC to have settled upon the world premiere of Miguel Cervantes' 1605 play as part of its Spanish Golden Age season. Sometimes there are reasons why plays go unperformed - and this is as good a reason I've come across. Even Cervantes' contemporaries didn't rate him as a playwright.
You can see why. Set alongside the complexities and sophistication of Lope de Vega's Dog in a Manger, this rambling episodic account of the life and times of merry trickster Pedro, a benign rogue whose escapades involve the dispensation of a rough justice among peasants and kings, rich and poor, is a very long journey to nowhere. Even Mike Alfreds' Brecht-lite style production can't put any backbone into an evening that is more picturesque than picaresque, and while Philip Osment's translation is clearly a labour of love it is often laborious to listen to.
Two things rescue the evening from theatre hell: the sense that this young company have developed into a genuine ensemble, and a winning performance from John Ramm as the dissembling Pedro, a man whose vocation is clearly in the theatre. It is a wonderfully disciplined comic performance. He holds back, even as he dupes a miserly widow out of her money, lends a sleight of hand to enable a stupid mayor to make judgements or ensures that a young woman gets the right husband. It is an admirable performance, but you still wish that the RSC had left this curiosity to the academics.
· Until March 12. Box office: 0870 060 6631.
