IN a week when the popularity of the Queen has risen to new heights, it is apt that the Royal Shakespeare Company's latest pro-duction should focus on a very different head of state.

The Roman Actor by Philip Massinger, part of the Jacobethan season at the Swan, is the tale of Domitian Caesar, ruler of Rome and evil tyrant, whose lust and cruelty are seemingly insatiable.

When he desires another man's wife, he forces her husband to give her a divorce before making her his empress. He then cruelly des-patches his critics, including the ex-husband, jotting their names down in a little black book as he does so.

However, all goes awry when his new consort falls for Paris, a favoured actor with a local troupe.

Eventually, his evil deeds catch up with him, and all those who he has wronged and survived wreak their bloody revenge.

Although on paper this does not sound a bundle of laughs, it is in fact a tragi-comedy and director Sean Holmes manages to squeeze a great deal of mirth out of such unpromis-ing fare.

The cast is excellent, with Joe Dixon as a commanding and mus-cular Paris, ably supported by Wayne Cater and Michael Matus as his fellow players.

Anna Madeley initially seems ten-tative as the op-portunistic Domi-tia, who eagerly abandons her husband. However, she grows in stat-ure throughout the play, eventually displaying real spirit and a haughty grandeur.

But there is no doubt that it is Sir Antony Sher as Caesar, looking like a cross between Uncle Fester in the Addams Family and Danny de Vito's Penguin in Batman Returns, who dominates the evening.

It is appropriate that he enters Rome triumphantly on a moving tower because this is a towering performance. It is also a truly terrifying depiction of a despotic psychopath, who revels in death and torture, and the abuse of power.

All in all, an evening that makes you appreciate our hopefully more enlightened age.

The Roman Actor is in repertory at The Swan Theatre until September 13. RSC box office 01789 403403.

Review by Mark Jessop