Mail on Sunday
26 March, 2001
By Georgina Brown

It's become de rigeur for Hollywood stars to slum it in the West End. But none has gone so far as to flog out to the regions to prove their commitment to their craft - until this week.

Joseph Fiennes, the smouldering Will in Shakespeare In Love and eagle-eyed sniper in the new film Enemy At The Gates, blazed the trail all the way to Sheffield to play the title role in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II.

I suspect that one attraction was the chance to work with director Michael Grandage (whose productions of Passion Play and As You Like It were last year's theatrical high points).

The other was a play well known for being the first English gay play, but probably best known for featuring one of the most savage regicides in all drama.

In those barbaric days, the punishment was often chosen to fit the crime. So Edward the sodomite's end comes courtesy of a red-hot poker stuffed where the sun don't shine.

I don't think this is Marlowe's greatest work by a long shot. Give me Dr Faustus or The Jew Of Malta any day - and as a study of power and kingship, Shakespeare's Richard II is far subtler, politically and emotionally.

But what's lacking in the poetry in Edward II (though the odd line does sing out) is almost made up for in the motion.

Grandage's superbly performed, brilliantly lit production goes full pelt and had me on the edge of my seat as it tells the story of the man who loses his throne and his life because of his love for another man.

While Grandage seizes every erotic opportunity for a snog, embrace or even something more between variously gorgeous men, you get the impression that it is Edward's reckless, insolent parading of his infatuation for an obviously dodgy type from the wrong class, rather than the wrong sex, that the snooty English nobles object to.

Joseph Fiennes gets better and better as the play races on. But it's the loss of his lover and his crown, and the suffering he endures, which gains him his heart and soul - and finally our sympathy.

Funnily enough, this has much to do with his eyebrows, which are marvellously expressive but seen at their best when the crown is off and he is a ragged, wretched prisoner in the dungeon of Berkeley Castle.

There are some fine supporting performances, but none nastier than his murderous visitor, Lightborn, played by Jamie Sives as a horribly pale and creepy rentboy who taunts Edward with a bit of foreplay before bumping him off. Chilling.