Newcomers will need to read the play in advance: Julius Caesar, at the Globe, reviewed

Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed inside Caesar’s costume explode bloodily with each dagger blow and the conspirators are doused in dripping scarlet gore. During the assault, Caesar fights back and very nearly survives. Highly realistic. Afterwards, his statue is toppled and rolled off the stage in a subtle echo of Colston’s ducking in Bristol docks.

The crowd relished every minute of this pacy, high-energy show even though the visuals are wildly confusing. Brutus (Anna Crichlow) is a lesbian who sports a beige pashmina, a white T-shirt and a fetching gold turban. She looks like the deputy chairperson at a seminar about dolphins. Her wife, Portia, enters from the bath wearing a shower cap and a slinky emerald robe. It’s not clear why ancient Rome is being taken over by these fragrant and well-scrubbed lovers.

The plot against Caesar is the brainchild of Cassius (Charlotte Bate – possibly a third lesbian), who looks about 23 but claims to be a contemporary of the 56-year-old autocrat. She recalls challenging Caesar to a cross-Tiber swim during their years as junior army officers, and when he started to drown she had to haul him out. How? She’s half his size. And it’s clear that this Baywatch moment happened 30 years earlier – long before she was born. Fans who know and love the text will enjoy the production despite these eccentricities but newcomers will have to read it in advance. Which defeats the point of producing it.

Wilful errors of casting and costume are commonplace nowadays even though they force the audience to work harder to understand the show. That’s probably the idea. It’s a common delusion among the overeducated that high culture has to involve pain.