Troilus and Cressida
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon

“STILL wars and lechery.” Thus Sheila Reid’s diminutive Thersites, as she crawls and buzzes around the motley lovers and warriors in Troilus and Cressida and her tirades of vituperative invective are a fairly accurate description of our world as much as Shakespeare’s.

 The play has always proved difficult to categorise among Shakespeare’s works. It's certainly not a romantic comedy – there's no happy ending – nor is it a tragedy, as the title characters are still alive at the end. Based on Homer’s epic conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans, it's certainly his most cynical analysis of human relationships in love and war.

Thanks largely to Oliver Ford Davies’s salaciously gleeful Pandarus encouraging his proteges, Gavin Fowler’s naive Troilus and Amber James’ gutsy Cressida — far from reluctant lovers — into bed, Gregory Doran’s production extracts every iota of sour comedy from the scenes in Troy.