A winter of Cic content at the Swan

The Royal Shakespeare Company will be turning to the work of best-selling novelist Robert Harris rather than the Bard for one of the highlights of its coming winter season at Stratford.Imperium, a new adaptation by Mike Poulton of Harris’s trilogy of novels about Cicero, the Roman orator and statesman, will be given a world premiere at The Swan in November. Staged as six plays, presented in two performances, it will be directed by the RSC’s Artistic Director Gregory Doran.Poulton’s most recent work for the RSC was an adaptation from the work of another contemporary historical novelist, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring UpThe Bodies.Gregory Doran commented, “We so often return to old stories to make sense of the world around us. In a year which has seen more than its share of political intrigue and unease, we complete our exploration of Rome and see how Shakespeare, his contemporaries and modern writers seek inspiration in myth and history.”