It’s epic. Of course it’s epic. It has to be epic. It’s Game of Thrones – an ever-expanding fantasy franchise not known for its lightness of touch, which now tumbles off the page and screen, onto the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
But this is no straightforward stage adaptation of author George RR Martin’s iconic fantasy adventure. This is a different beast.
So while there are plenty of familiar names bandied about – from Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon and the manipulative Lord ‘Spider’ Varys, to various Westeros locations – there’s also a new story, one that sits within the pre-existing narrative, and is now firmly touted as canon.
Set 17 to 18 years before the events of the TV series, the RSC’s spectacular takes what we already know from other media to imagine the regime-shifting run-up to the fall of King Aerys II Targaryen – the so-called Mad King.
And it all begins with a woodland skirmish.
A young Howland Reed (Islam Bouakkaz) is rescued from a mugging by a boisterous Lyanna Stark (Harmony Rose-Bremner) and her clan, including a young Eddard ‘Ned’ Stark (Michael Abubakar). This seemingly inconsequential incident leads us to The Great Tourney of Harrenhal, during the False Spring – a key event in Games of Thrones lore, but one never depicted on screen or page.
Here, an audacious plot is hatched by King Aerys’ son, Prince Rhaegar (Noah Ritter), and his associates to bring rival houses together to overthrow the increasingly unbalanced and paranoid King Aerys (Michael Shaeffer).
But their machinations are unexpectedly thrown into disarray when the Prince, having won the tournament, refuses to crown his wife, Princess Elia Martell (Elizabeth Ayodele), as Queen Of Love And Beauty. Instead, the besotted youth bestows the honour on the independently minded Lyanna – who has already been betrothed to plain-talking, hard-drinking, grief-stricken man-of-action Lord Robert Baratheon (Callum Woodhouse).
And before you know it, princesses are imprisoned, armies assembled, messenger ravens despatched, deals are made, bets hedged, dragons imagined, babies are born, lives are lost … and a new king is declared.
It’s all very epic.
Directed by Dominic Cooke, with Duncan Macmillan credited as ‘Adaptor’ and George RR Martin as ‘Creator’ (and Executive Producer), The Mad King’s journey to the stage has been fittingly monumental – a decade in the planning, yet with previews mysteriously cancelled as the production continued to be refined.
And it could still do with some refining. For starters, it’s long – very long – with the final runtime clocking in at three hours 45 minutes (including an interval). Meanwhile, the King’s madness feels too superficial, cartoon-like, and some of the slo-mo/blackout battle sequences, though grand, could do with tightening. The political machinations of the conclusion are also too speedily tucked away.
Of course, like all prequels, it also suffers from the fact that we know exactly where things are heading. So there’s no real surprise when we see the mad monarch finally deposed and learn the identity of the new ruler.
But The Mad King is less about the conclusion, and more about the journey, as Macmillan and Cooke do a decent job of juggling the sizeable number of characters, and ensure the sprawling narrative is largely well-paced, with enough sub-plots and spectacle to keep both hardcore and lesser-engaged fans entertained. The cast’s performances are solid too, while the emergence of the iconic Iron Throne in Act II earns a scene-stealing cheer from the audience.
As a stand-alone piece of theatre, The Mad King scrapes through. But as an extension of the Game of Thrones world, it scores well, shifting the narrative to the stage with suitably theatrical thrust.
A swift sell-out as soon as it was announced, further performances are pretty well guaranteed, while it’s hard to imagine HBO and Warner Bros execs not discussing how they could eventually bring the story to the screen.
For all its flaws, this is one Mad King whose reign is set to continue unposed.
Game Of Thrones: The Mad King is showing at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon.