SOURCE: A review of Coriolanus, in Cahiers Élisabéthains, Vol. 58, October, 2000, pp. 95-6.

In the following review, Smith offers a negative assessment of Ralph Fiennes's Coriolanus, although the critic does praise the efforts of the other principal actors. Smith maintains that the play was unable to effectively dramatize Coriolanus's “martial superiority.”

Gainsborough Studios started life as an electricity generating plant for the Metropolitan Railway. Subsequently converted into a film studio, it attracted the likes of Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger. Most famously, Alfred Hitchcock used it to make The Lady Vanishes. It is now a makeshift theatre for five months during the staging here, in repertory, of the Almeida Theatre Company's Richard II and Coriolanus, both directed by Jonathan Kent and starring Ralph Fiennes in the title roles. The venue is scruffily impressive. A cavernous space is filled with makeshift seating constructed from scaffolding...