SOURCE: Gardner, Lyn. “Men Fall in Love with War in Bristol: Troilus and Cressida.” Guardian (13 February 2003): 25.

In the following review of Andrew Hilton's 2003 stage production of Troilus and Cressida, Gardner remarks on the relevancy of the play for the twenty-first century but notes that while Hilton's play was expertly performed, his uncut version was too long to be completely appealing to modern audiences.

There is probably no more pertinent a time for a revival of Shakespeare's story of the Trojan war than now. It offers not just a sharp reminder that war involves, as the clown Thersites puts it, “too much blood and too little brain” but also that war corrupts even those who begin it with honourable intent and what they perceive as just cause. After ten long years of fighting, the moral landscape of Shakespeare's play is one of futility and corruption. Even heroes such as...