So it’s Ragnarok today…

...And on the day that the Norse god Loki is supposed to break free of his chains and thereby precipitate the End Of All Things, I find it incongruous that Howard and I are watching ‘Loki’ being strung up in chains. And a teeny tiny part of me (the illogical part) wants Young Tom Hiddleston to suddenly stop with the Shakespeare and suddenly launch into World Destruction.

As this is pretty unlikely, however, I am for the most part content amongst the very mixed crowd of Shakespeare junkies (of both sexes) and Hiddlestoners (of pretty much just one sex) to just sit and enjoy the production. Yes folks, it’s another National Theatre Live weekend for this little black duck!

And a blindingly good production it was, too. It’s not often you can look around, say “Hey, I’ve got 10 chairs, a rostrum, a ladder, some paint and a length of chain – I vote we put on some heavy duty Shakespeare!” and actually make it work like magic. The set design deserved a screen credit all of its own for its sheer cleverness.

No wonder people were living in sleeping bags outside the Donmar to try and score last-minute tickets…. (Ok maybe that was at least partly owing to the prospect of seeing Caius Martius in a very thin robe which accentuated certain attributes thanks to some strategic stage lighting).

Hiddleston did a top-notch job, I freely concede. Plus that boy would win a gold medal for Britain in a Crying Olympics. Frankly, he makes snot look attractive. Which is just plain unfair.

I admit to disgracing myself by asking someone in the interval who Alfred Enoch was: turned out to be some Harry Potter thing. I am an utter heathen, clearly. Took me awhile to even pick the chap out, but in my defence he was completely overshadowed by the likes of Mark Gatiss, Hadley Fraser et al. A cracking cast lineup.

So overall, in my NT scorecards, this is now ranking second to Frankenstein, pushing Othello down to third place and nudging David Tennant in his ethereal David Bowie/Man Who Fell to Earth impression in Richard II into fourth position.