Christopher Marlowe’s history play, first performed in 1593 and widely acted until 1617, was not seen again until 1903. It was the king’s love affair with the low-born Gaveston which kept the play off the stage. Edward (John Heffernan) and Gaveston (acted by Kyle Soller with an American accent) kiss each other for so long that you think they must be trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records. The funniest moment is when the king absurdly keeps loading him with more and more honours The English barons blame Gaveston for distracting the king from his political duties and hold him responsible for England’s decline. The big question is whether the king will be able to save his lover from being banished or, worse, murdered?
Joe Hill-Gibbins’s irritating production doesn’t do justice to the verse and it certainly doesn’t make Marlowe more accessible. The set is a shambles. The costumes are singularly ugly. Major scenes take place off-stage and are recorded on film, with a hand-held camera, which are relayed in shaky close-up on huge screens either side of the stage. There are captions in the Brechtian manner. The word “alarums” is accompanied by the cast pulling down the scenery. A pianist plays the hokey cokey. A baron answers a phone. Edward’s brother has had a sex-change and is now his sister. Edward’s champagne-loving Queen is a chain-smoker. The audience laughed every time she lit a cigarette. Her little boy is played by a mature actress in short trousers, a school blazer and tie and a ghastly wig.
The one thing (perhaps the only thing) everybody seems to know about Edward is his murder with a red-hot poker up his backside. It is this horrific scene in a sewer-ridden prison which works best in this production; and it is given an innovative Freudian twist by having his murderer, Lightborn, one of Marlowe’s finest roles, also acted by Kyle Soller.