Troilus and Cressida at Shakespeare’s Globe: ‘A study of toxic masculinity’

They are also ridiculous. Early on, the flower of Troy’s fighting youth parade before Cressida in bulbously muscled, spangly bodysuits, as Pandarus nudges her towards Troilus. Jonathan Livingstone’s Agamemnon is a smug politician, David Caves’s Achilles an imposing Ryan Gosling lookalike gone to paunchy seed, holed up in his tent with his toyboy Patroclus and refusing to fight. Ibraheem Toure’s heroically stupid Ajax is shuffled into his place to fight the Trojan champion Hector (a cool, contained Oliver Alvin-Wilson). The absurdity of this war is summed up in Hector’s acknowledgment: “Thou art, Ajax, my father’s sister’s son.”