Nero review

“Roman politics? I’d rather do Greek theatre!” cries our titular enfant terrible, played by Broadway’s youngest ever Dear Evan Hansen star Andrew Barth Feldman as as ghastly, attention-seeking brat with mummy issues. The formidable mama in question is Sally Dexter’s murderous Agrippina. And, thanks partly to Georgia Lowe’s designs, which put Agrippina in swishy black velvet like a Disney villainess, and her monstrous little darling in red tulle, latex and lurex, they make a cartoonishly eye-catching pair as they plot Nero’s ascension to Caesar, following the untimely demise of his father, Claudius.

Chaos, inevitably, ensues. Nero’s lust for power and glory quickly sees him turn on his mother; among those also sacrificed are his adoptive sister Octavia (Nabi Brown), whom he marries, impregnates and confines, straitjacketed, to her quarters; Britannicus (Timo Tatzber), her brother, mocked and poisoned; and teacher and statesman Seneca (Stephen Carlile), forced into suicide. 

Brown and Tatzber get the show’s most mournful melodies, which they deliver with commitment and which do, admittedly, feature some scraps of loveliness. But they’re too untethered to any sort of dramatic coherence to have much impact. 

Meanwhile – as Nero hits his Trumpian political stride and begins speechifying about making Rome great again, and the city state being “flooded by aliens who steal our jobs and poison our good Roman blood” – Carlile is lumbered with the most contrived number, Quelle Surprise, to which he minces about to Sheik’s bossa nova beat, brows satirically raised, among a chorus of prancing senators brandishing attaché cases.

Lowe’s simple set – a mirrored wall, red velvet drapes, Nero’s name spelt out in light bulbs – leaves ample space to shine for her sparkly costumes and for James Cousins’ choreography, which deploys martial phalanx formations, sees Nero literally climbing over the bodies of his populace, or drops in a dash of tango or writhing bump and grind. As Poppea – courtesan, entertainer and Nero’s second wife – Rhianne-Louise McCaulsky gets a couple of standout showgirl tunes, even though Sater’s book writes her character off as a venal, short-sighted seductress; as her husband Tigellinus, leather-clad soldier lover to Agrippina, Waylon Jacobs is still less well-served, with little more to do than pose about like beefcake eye candy. 

This is a strange show that feels as if it’s suffering an identity crisis: one minute it’s trying to prod us into anger or sadness, the next it’s just back to sniggering. Like Nero himself, it’s a problem child that hasn’t properly grown up; and in the end, that’s just tiresome.

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