Timon, wrote Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail, "tends to be dismissed as one of Shakespeare's clunkers". He's right except that in the last 50 years, like so many of Shakespeare's unfashionable plays, it's enjoyed a bit of a theatrical renaissance. I suspect it's largely because we find its savagely satirical portrait of a wealth-worshipping society based on naked self-interest ever more topical.
I first saw the play at Stratford in 1965 with Paul Scofield, whose voice one critic compared to "thunder buffeting from crag to crag", as a magnificent Timon.
But it was Peter Brook's 1974 Paris production at the Bouffes du Nord that really changed my thinking not just about the play but about the act of theatre itself. Brook's magic was evident in scenes like that of Timon's first-act party where the tipsily swaying guests were all encased in golden twine. I remember coming back to London believing that theatre, at its best, consists of direct, uncomplicated communication with 500 or 600 people at a time.
Since then, I've seen a number of first-rate performances and productions. Richard Pasco (1983) and Michael Pennington (1999) were excellent RSC Timons.
Trevor Nunn at the Young Vic and Cardboard Citizens, in a production at Stratford Town Hall, highlighted the play's modernity. But it was Nicholas Hytner's 2012 revival at the Olivier, rather undermining my argument about the virtues of small auditoria, that I admired most. With its vivid updating, showing the protagonist hosting a swanky sponsors' party in the Timon Room of a smart gallery, it brought out the toxic nature of the fat-cat culture. And Simon Russell Beale was at his best in suggesting that Timon's philanthropy was a way of compensating for his inadequate human relationships. One of Shakespeare's least loved plays became a bitter fable about the precariousness of a credit culture and the insulating effect of wealth.
• What are your favourite versions of Timon of Athens? Let us know in the comments below
