You get what it says on the tin, and more. Ben Jonson's rarely performed 1603 drama about power struggles in ancient Rome has more sex and blood than even the BBC could imagine. Set during the fractious reign of the Emperor Tiberius, it follows the rise and fall of Tiberius's second-in-command, Sejanus, a man on the make who is as ruthless and ambitious as it is possible to be while wearing a short skirt and sandals. This is Richard III plus togas.
There are times during the evening when you do wish that you really were getting Richard III, particularly as William Houston is triumphant in the title role, displaying all the sardonic wit and twisted attractiveness that suggest he should get a crack at the hunchback smartish. But although I sometimes experienced a little trouble sorting out my Sabinus from my Satrius and my Latiaris from my Eudemus, Gregory Doran's muscular production is sheer simplicity - played on an almost bare grilled and colonnaded stage. The play echoes fairly effortlessly down the centuries, and in scenes of burning books and toppled statues brings to mind more recent power-crazy despots.
Yes, it is a little dry in places, at times a little pompous, and Jonson never makes this a particularly complex portrait of villainous opportunism. But the equation between the lust for power and sexual appetite is deftly made, in the scenes where he first seduces Livia, wife of Tiberius's son, and then delivers a soliloquy while sodomising a servant. "Is Sejanus yet come?" enquires Tiberius. There's another lovely moment when the craven senators initially jostle to get close to Sejanus, and then try to physically distance themselves from him. It could have been another dusty curiosity, but Houston's charismatic star turn pitted against Barry Stanton's wily Tiberius ensures it is more enjoyable than that.
· Until January 28. Box office: 0870 060 6632.
