Antony and Cleopatra at Shakespeare North Playhouse

Shakespeare, but not as you know it. This UK premiere strips Antony and Cleopatra back to its raw mechanics and rebuilds it as a contemporary battle over community, capital and control.

Welcome to Egypt – the bustling community hub and iconic music venue run by Queen Cleopatra, a legendary activist at the centre of this music-fuelled community. It’s a place built on mutual support rather than profit, where live performance, free food and community care provide everything the citizens of a rundown city need to survive. Rome, by contrast, arrives as a corporate force: extractive, transactional, and primed to seize Egypt in the name of profit.

Caught in the crossfire is Antony, one of Rome’s top leaders, sent in to close the deal – only to find himself drawn in by Cleopatra, and by the collective energy gathered around the only community space left in town. His pull towards her, and towards the community she leads, isn’t just romantic but ideological. The question isn’t whether love can survive politics, but whether care can survive capitalism.

Original music and live singing are central to the production, functioning as part of Egypt’s lifeblood – expressions of joy, resistance and collective identity set against Rome’s cold efficiencies. The music, written by Rukus – artistic director of Baby People, the UK’s first dedicated hip hop school – brings a soul-inflected sound into a story where music and community are inseparable.

Shakespeare’s classic tale is translated into modern verse by Christopher Chen and reimagined by Derby-based theatre company, 1623. The production is co-directed by Sam Beckett Jr and Ben Spiller, and co-created by a team of Deaf, disabled, LGBTQ+, global majority, neurodivergent and working-class theatre makers. Accessibility is built into the experience, with creative audio description, BSL and captions integrated as part of the show.

At Shakespeare North Playhouse, Antony and Cleopatra plays not as a grand historical tragedy but as something more urgent – a story of love, loyalty and power reframed as a contemporary struggle between community and corporate greed.