Adapted by Mike Poulton from the Cicero novels of Robert Harris
seen at the Gielgud Theatre on 4 July 2018
Gregory Doran directs Richard McCabe as Cicero and Joseph Kloska as his secretary Tiro, with a supporting cast of twenty-three, in a two part adaptation of Robert Hrris's three Cicero novels (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator) though most of the material from the first novel has not been used. The two stage parts are called Conspirator and Dictator, and each contains three plays: Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in the first, and Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian in the second. From this it can be seen that the first play deals with Cicero's consulship (63 BCE) and the subsequent and controversial suppression of Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate government of Rome (if that is what it was), while the second deals with Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE and its aftermath up to the death of Cicero in the following year.
