Faultless visuals – shame about the play: the National's Coriolanus reviewed

Weird play, Coriolanus. It’s like a playground fight that spills out into the street and has to be resolved by someone’s mum. The hero is a Roman general whose enemies conspire to banish him so he takes revenge by joining forces with a foreign power and laying siege to Rome.

Coriolanus’s mother shows up on the battlefield and begs him to drop his vendetta and come back home. Later he dies but without delivering a big speech.

The Roman soldiers have plastic swords that go ‘clack’ rather than metal ones that go ‘ching’

The key difficulty is that Coriolanus’s tragic flaw, a lack of ambition, is really a virtue. He’s far too noble for his own good and his disdain for power makes him annoying rather than admirable. He’s a high-minded windbag, a gabbling fence-sitter, a verbose but overcautious dud.

He may be indomitably brave in battle but he’s also unstoppably prolix in debate. This makes him lifeless and uninspiring. Watching his story is like riding a bike with a broken chain. The pedals are spinning but you’re moving nowhere.

David Oyelowo has the misfortune to play the prattling duffer and he does the job well enough. Wonderful diction, a powerful stage presence and a proper sense of gravitas. He’s at his best in the battle scenes but the NT’s armourer has supplied the Roman soldiers with plastic swords that go ‘clack’ rather than metal ones that go ‘ching.’

The poster shows Oyelowo stripped to the waist like a porn star which suggests a certain anxiety about ticket sales. Rightly so. If you feel you ought to see Coriolanus – perhaps you haven’t ticked that box yet – you’ll find this an acceptable option. You can doze through the boring bits and just enjoy the scenery.