The corrupting power of gold

Apparently, Karl Marx liked the play. He is one of the very few people who ever have.

Timon of Athens has never been popular with audiences and it is rarely revived. It's very brave of artistic director Dominic Dromgoole to include it in the Globe season.

Timon is described as a noble and good man, but his goodness is evilly bestowed. He buys the friendship of parasites and flatterers with lavish banquets and expensive presents.

His ostentatiously extravagant and indiscriminate generosity is reckless in the extreme. His absurd profligacy finally ruins him.

His sycophantic and hypocritical friends behave like yapping, fawning dogs. The only women present at his all-male orgies are a couple of prostitutes who are more than willing to do what is needed under the table.

Timon thinks that he is wealthy in his friends, but he is loved only for his money and, when he is bankrupt, his friends desert him in droves.

He retreats to the wilderness where, half-naked, he launches into mad King Lear-like tirades, cursing man's ingratitude. It is his sentiments on the corrupting power of gold which appealed so much to Marx.

The supreme irony is that, in the middle of all the bitter invective, when he finds more gold and prostitutes, robbers, soldiers and senators come knocking at his cave.

Timon is a role for a great actor, but, unfortunately, very few great actors have ever wanted to play it.

Simon Paisley's Timon, stripped to his unexpectedly clean Y-fronts, looks like an emaciated El Greco Christ.

Bo Poraj's Apemantus, a professional cynic and misanthrope, looks like the sort of burly bloke you'd find on a Michelangelo ceiling.

Lucy Bailey's production takes its inspiration from Bosch and Breughel and panders to the Globe audience by having the exiled Timon find gold in his lavatory and then having him throw the treasure, along with his own excrement, all over the place.

At one point, Timon reveals a dirty bum and smears his faeces on the faces of some unwelcome visitors. The audience gave this revolting comedy business a round of applause.

Book early for this challenging play. There are 700 £5 tickets for every performance.

Plays until October 3. Box office: (020) 7401-9919.

ROBERT TANITCH