The indisposition of Vanessa Redgrave, who was due to play Hecuba, leaves a gaping hole in the RSC schedule, so they've whipped out one they made earlier.
It is 44 years since John Barton devised this affectionate entertainment about the kings and queens of England, spanning the centuries from 1066 to Victoria's coronation. It feels centuries old. It belongs to an era when people didn't mind going out to see what they could hear perfectly well on Radio 4, and they stood up for God Save the Queen.
If there is a reason for this miscellany of monarchs, it is the opportunity to see some of theatre's grand old men together on stage, offering between them an interesting array of smoking jackets, cravats and creamy vowels. This is a display of the voice beautiful. Alan Howard, Richard Johnson and Donald Sinden rattle through the highs and lows of the British monarchy including the familiar (James I's Counterblast to Tobacco, Charles I's confrontation with Bradshaw at his trial for high treason) and the less familiar, including poems and songs (the latter performed by Stephen Gray) that suggest several British monarchs might have been contenders for Eurovision song contest had they been born a few centuries later.
Of the performers, Harriet Walter comes off the best. She makes every one of the queens a real character and has the benefit of delivering 15-year-old Jane Austen's hilariously prejudiced account of the reigns of Henry IV through Charles II, in which the young writer posits the view that that truth is "very excusable in an historian". The evening needs more such irreverence and levity if it is to attract anyone other than octogenarians and American tourists.
· Until March 19. Box office: 0870 609 1110.
