The Royal Shakespeare Company's most insulting production yet

The newly revamped Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is full of surprises, not least a certain inviting chair that is roving around the theatre's public spaces. When I sat on it, a disembodied voice informed me, no doubt accurately, that I was "a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle" – one of King Lear's more colourful lines. This, then, is the Insult Chair. Depending on what mood you find it in, it may call you "a crusty botch of nature", a "lump of foul deformity", or inform you, courtesy of Measure for Measure, that "your bum is the best thing about you".