STAGE REVIEW: Coriolanus at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until October 14, 2017.

CONVERSATIONS cease abruptly and there are expressions of surprise and amusement as this final play in the RSC’s Rome season gets underway with a forklift-truck in virtual ‘Strictly’ action centre-stage…

Slowly, and fairly quietly, it weaves its way around like a lonely dancer removing three large piles of sacks from the middle of the stage to the rear, and then down come three metal gates as the truck exits right to a smattering of applause.

How often, we all must have wondered, can a fork-lift truck have earned applause from an audience at the world-famous RST when they were anticipating a night of quality from yet another of Shakespeare’s tragedies?

There’s little quality from a fork-lift truck apart from that of moving and neatly stacking loads sitting on pallets…. and just what was the purpose of that little exercise?

Were we actually viewing the rear of a garden-cum-DIY centre with sacks full of stone chippings, gravel, even bulbs or grass seed?

Importantly the answer is no, as this is Rome and famine is beginning to cause unrest in the ranks of its residents… and in those sacks was corn and they want their share. Fat chance!

One other early message that comes across clear as the real action unfolds is that we are once again going down the route of modernity. Forget the togas, long flowing robes and soldiers in Roman battle-dress. These are replaced with well-heeled residents in dinner jackets, bow ties and so on, and nothing that the ladies were wearing would have looked out of place in Vogue or Vanity Fayre.

The plebs were in more of an uncouth youth mode of clothing, including hoodies, beanies and track-suit bottoms.

So boo to tradition as far as director Angus Jackson is concerned, but it didn’t grate on the nerves as much as this forward thrust into modern dress has done in the past.

Great credit is due there to Sope Dirisu - playing Coriolanus in what is his debut role with the RSC and what a start. An eye-catching opener without doubt.

He looked completely at home. Poised and powerful, with strong and clear delivery as he captured the very essence of the part.

Coriolanus began the night as Caius Martius, a general who is honoured with his new name along with the gratitude of Rome when he won a war against the neighbouring Volscians - including a key battle at Corioli. But he is no man of the people. He actually despises them and is strongly with the patricians.

It’s his contempt for the common people that eventually leads to his demise as two people’s representatives are given new powers to sit in the Senate. They provide the axis which swings gratitude to a hero to zero.

Banishment and worse follow quickly behind Coriolanus even though he attempts revenge on Rome by joining his former Volscian adversaries.

Jackie Morrison and Martina Laird both provide suitably scheming shenanigans to thwart Coriolanus as the appointed Tribunes of the plebeians, Sicinius Veletus and Junius Brutus, and there are further excellent and heart-warming performances from Haydn Gwynne, as Coriolanus’s mother Volumnia, Hannah Morrish as his wife Virgilia, and Paul Jesson, who plays a patrician elder, Menenius.

Also in fine form was James Corrigan, as Coriolanus’s arch enemy, Tullus Aufidius. His fight scenes with Sope Dirisu were especially memorable and bestow great credit on Terry King, the fight director.

At around three hours duration, and quite heavy at times, the 20 minute interval is a welcome breather. But Angus Jackson keeps it all ticking over and solidly interesting as he elicits complete trust from the cast who deliver Shakespeare’s story with sheer quality… and with not a fork-lift truck in sight!

A rousing reception at the end, especially for Sope Dirisu, was thoroughly well earned by all and it’s highly likely Stratford audiences will be seeing him there quite often in the future.