Caligula at the Maidment Theatre

By JOHN GARDNER

Watching Caligula is like standing in front of a philosophical machine gun. Ideas, aphorisms, paradoxes and moral dilemmas whistle overhead in rapid fire.

Just as you take one on board and, perhaps, make contemporary parallels - "oops, there goes another".

The nature of grief, the exercise of power, solipsism, courage, that hoary old riddle the meaning of life and there's plenty more where they came from. The problem is having this intellectual cargo work as a theatrical experience.

Remarkably, the piece does just make it. Colin McColl's clever production uses every device in the repertoire.

Knock-about business, camp comedy, a strikingly successful use of video, sound, an interesting lighting plot and terrific costumes all make a contribution.

But Caligula is almost totally dependent on its central performance. Oliver Driver is up to the task.

From his first appearance, beautifully staged to make the most of Driver's towering height, he portrays a mind at the end of its tether by means of a ferocious physicality you can't take your eyes off.

This is a young man who has made the universal discovery of youth that "things are not as they should be" but whose absolute power provides the opportunity to rage against this truism with demonic effect.

Camus handicaps his performer by having Caligula arrive at this nihilistic despair as the play opens, leaving the character nowhere to go.

But Driver introduces light and shade with virtuosity, commanding sympathy despite the mounting body count.

The underpinning of the performance is a savage, mirthless wit which appeared to confuse some of the audience into thinking they were watching the Benny Hill Show.

It is not a one-man show but the support players, who give performances of variable quality, are merely objects on whom Caligula acts. Stuart Devenie as Cherea, has a diction and ability to let a line breathe that provides a model some other cast members could benefit from equalling.

He and Danielle Cormack, who plays Caesonia, whose murder signals Caligula's disintegration, seize their chances.

But it is Driver, appalling and appealing, who makes this deeply serious, violently funny work a production of real quality.