RSC’s MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

13 September to 25 October 2025

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure was first performed in 1604, a mere 421 years ago. But in Emily Burns’s sleek, clinical, modern-day production for the RSC, its themes and content register as though written during the past year.

The cutting-edged drama unfolds inside Frankie Bradshaw’s tight-fitting set of cold blue steel, polished glass and jade green leather. Its angular, unyielding precision evokes a courtroom in which political morality, and the men in suits who practice it, will be brought to trial, in the full glare of Joshua Pharo’s merciless lighting design.

An opening video montage leaves the audience in no doubt as to the identities, the crimes and misdemeanours of the defendants in this queasy tale of manipulation, sexual exploitation, misogyny and political expediency. Familiar faces pop up on giant screens on either side of the stage, each replete with a whiff of scandal, sleaze and mendacity – Clinton, Weinstein, Johnston, Epstein, Trump and a certain prince … the list could go on.

Bang on cue, the spotlight falls onto two power-hungry men. First up is Adam James’s sharp-suited, smooth-talking Duke of Vienna, who is seeking to take a break from his onerous duties of state. Enter his anointed stand-in, Tom Mothersdale’s sycophantic, bureaucratic Angelo, self-appointed leader of the morality police.

As the Duke morphs seamlessly into an unsettlingly convincing, faux-pious alter ego, Angelo wastes no time in exposing himself as considerably more than a mere lickspittle. Motivated by a dangerous combination of religious fervour and lust, he swiftly turns his lascivious gaze onto Isabella, a sweet-faced, young novice nun.

But beneath her gingham bodice and modest, dirndle skirt, Isis Hainsworth’s clear voiced Isabella will reveal herself as a force to be reckoned with. She can barely conceal her disgust at Angelo’s queasy insistence that she trades her virginity for the life of her brother Claudio (Oli Higginson), whom he has condemned to death for consorting with his pregnant fiancee Juliet (Miya James).

The cleverly choreographed moment when the siblings meet through the bars of a prison cell is one of the production’s most tender moments.

In contrast, the identity swop between Isabella and Angelo’s thwarted lover Mariana (Emily Benjamin) culminates in another ingenious piece of staging, a sexual encounter both brutal and explicit, which leaves little to the imagination.

But Burns is not through with us yet. Two camera operatives step on stage, screening, in unforgiving close focus, every muscle twitch, every bead of sweat, every fleeting emotion behind the Duke, Angelo, Mariana and Isabella’s inner thoughts.

Blown up to towering proportions, they reveal a quartet of acting of the highest quality, leading to a climactic moment of liberation – or maybe something darker? – which even Shakespeare might not have envisaged.