charlietspeck
What a piece of work is Man and Superman? Hard work, to be frank. George Bernard Shaws experimental juggernaut deemed unstageable in 1903 makes for three and a half hours of tangled philosophy: a blow-away light comedy weighed down by footnotes. Its a play for changing times, a bid to throw off the past and make things anew, and yet Simon Godwins handsome, modern-dress revival at the National Theatre treats it as a cultural artefact. His production abandons its audience, offering no clues for decoding the text, while Ralph Fiennes plays the motor-mouth social reformer Jack Tanner like a tongue-twister challenge. You keep up or else.