The Mad King may bring more dynastic disputes and dotty despots to the RSC – but a ‘mayhap’ or a riddling aphorism does not a Shakespeare play make

As a latecomer to Game of Thrones, I am struck by how many people tell me it is “very Shakespearean”. It is as if they need to justify its heady escapism and heavy reliance on bonking and brutality. But its debt to the Bard – apart from the rivalry between the houses of Lannister and Stark – rests mainly on the casting. Watching the first 11 episodes, I noticed four Lears past and to come (Julian Glover, David Bradley, Oliver Ford-Davies and Roger Allam), a Macbeth (Sean Bean), a Hamlet and Henry V (Iain Glen) and a Cassius (Michelle Fairley) among many others.

Because it is presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and staged by Dominic Cooke, who memorably directed The Hollow Crown on television, we shall doubtless hear the same arguments about Game of Thrones: The Mad King at Stratford. But, although there are frequent nods to Shakespeare, they totally lack the resonance of the original. Our first sight of Michael Shaeffer’s King Aerys with a white beard, a leafy crown and no shoes almost screams “Lear on the heath”. But where Lear gradually declines into insanity (“O fool I shall go mad”) and comes out the other side, Shaeffer’s Aerys is a dotty despot from start to finish. The use of tournaments to settle dynastic disputes also reminds us of the opening of Richard II – but where that event is aborted and ultimately causes the king’s downfall, here the image of embattled jousters is endlessly repeated.

Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
This prequel to the TV series has one joust after another, spectacular stagecraft and plenty of modern resonance

During the RSC’s 65 years, numerous Lears have lost their minds and frequent Caesars been slaughtered by their courts. Now, though, a tyrant new to its stages faces both fates. He is King Aerys II Targaryen, ancestor of one warring bloodline in Game of Thrones, the dramatisation of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels that helped TV streamers’ rise to global domination during eight HBO seasons from 2011 to 2019.

Some may balk at an institution named for England’s greatest dramatist staging an American drama franchise. There is, though, a compelling economic imperative: rising costs due to current wars (a frequent problem for Martin’s ancient oligarchs too) and Covid-era debts now exacerbated by paying back government loans means that the RSC could use another big commercial transfer – as its musical Matilda may not be immortal.

New play, which has been a decade in the works, opens at the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon after five previews were cancelled

A winter of discontent is anticipated by the embattled characters in Game of Thrones, but the Royal Shakespeare Company is banking on a glorious summer with its world premiere of a prequel to the hit TV series based on George RR Martin’s fantasy novels.

The new play, The Mad King, arrives 30 years to the month after the original publication of A Game of Thrones, the first novel in Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire. It has a gala performance in Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday evening in a reconfigured Royal Shakespeare theatre with a capacity of 870. Tickets for the entire run, priced from £10 to £95, have already sold out.