The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Swan Theatre, RSC 30 April
By Bertolt Brecht
Directed by Seán Linnen

Review by Rebecca Morris

Bertolt Brecht wrote The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in 1941, in exile, as fascism rose across Europe and the mechanics of Hitler’s ascent to power became horrifyingly clear. Ostensibly a parable about Chicago gangsters and the collapse of a cauliflower cartel, the play is in fact a precise anatomical study of how authoritarianism was normalised, legitimised and embraced. Brecht was writing a warning composed literally as the disease was spreading.

That sense of urgency permeates throughout Seán Linnen’s brilliant Royal Shakespeare Company production at the Swan Theatre. This is not Brecht as a museum-piece, or Brecht as pastiche, but Brecht as a living, dangerous act and one that understands both the formal demands of epic theatre and the frightening contemporary relevance of the story it tells.

The play’s plot takes us on a step‑by‑step journey through the mechanics of Hitler’s rise to power, translating real historical events into Brecht’s gangster parable. Arturo Ui (Mark Gatiss) functions openly as a stand‑in for Adolf Hitler, his criminal takeover mirroring the Führer’s ascent. Corrupt agricultural cartel, the Cauliflower Trust represents the Prussian Junkers, while the statesmen Dogsborough (Christopher Godwin) Brecht’s analogue for President Hindenburg, provides the crucial institutional legitimacy Ui requires. Betty Dulfleet (Janie Dee) symbolises Austria, and the key moments of the 1930s are methodically dramatised: the Reichstag Fire appears as the burning of a warehouse; the Night of the Long Knives is enacted through the murder of Roma (Kadiff Kirwan); and Anschluss is echoed in the violent annexation of Cicero. In Linnen’s production, these correspondences are not left for the audience to infer but are explicitly named and dated on dot‑matrix screens, denying any ambiguity.

And this clarity is key. Brecht’s epic theatre requires distance -the famous Verfremdungseffekt (or alienation effect) designed not to cool emotional engagement, but to sharpen political understanding. Here, banners, placards, microphones, narration and projected text are woven into a hybrid theatrical language that fuses traditional Brechtian devices with 21st‑century technology. Crucially, these techniques never feel bolted on. They actively enhance the storytelling, making the production feel not only relevant but prescient.

The decision to fully embrace epic theatre also extends to the ensemble’s presence. Cast members roam the auditorium dressed in RSC aertex shirts and lanyards, collapsing the illusion of period.

That tone is brilliantly established by the unexpected opening appearance of Mawaan Rizwan (The Barker / Giri) Without spoilers, this entrance hands the audience the key to the evening as it signals the stylistic anarchy and the moral seriousness of what is to come. Rizwan is impeccable throughout as Giri (Hermann Göring) embodying what the programme describes as characters who live “half in a reality and half in a graphic novel.” This heightened stylisation proves astonishingly effective: extreme violence is rendered sharply and starkly, allowing us to observe not only the acts themselves but their devastatingly human consequences.

The production leans into anarchic theatricality, nodding to circus, clowning and absurdity, while never losing its political bite. Naturalism collides with grotesque exaggeration, holding a distorted mirror up to a political landscape many in the audience will all too readily recognise.

Even the vegetables become weapons. Making cauliflowers and beetroots sinister rather than funny is no small feat, yet this production manages it with chilling success; a reminder of how easily the banal can be weaponised.

The ensemble is uniformly extraordinary. LJ Parkinson’s Givola (Joseph Goebbels) dominates the second act with a ferocious, muscular performance that is thrilling to watch, while Rebekah Hinds is razor-sharp as gangster’s moll, Dockdaisy. Kadiff Kirwan’s Roma is a particular highlight: playing the analogue of Ernst Röhm, the brutal leader of the Brownshirts, Kirwan finds an unsettling tenderness within the character. Brecht’s text deliberately pushes us into discomfort here, inviting sympathy for a deeply violent figure, and Kirwan’s ability leans into that complexity without apology.

At the centre of the whirlwind is Mark Gatiss as Arturo Ui, delivering a towering performance that stands out even in an already impressive stage career. His Ui is physically repellent – slimy, weak, bombastic and terrifying by turns – and utterly recognisable as Hitler. There is no softening and no subtle hinting; the parallels are explicit. Yet Gatiss never slips into parody. Instead, he occupies the dangerous space Brecht demands by somehow embodying both the historical figure and the grotesque theatrical construct simultaneously.

The scene in which Ui is coached by an actor on how to walk, speak and command a crowd lands with particular force. Played for comedy in the moment, it is undercut by the audience’s awareness of exactly what is being manufactured before our eyes.

Visually, the production is just as assured. Georgia Lowe’s set and costume design is a triumph of simplicity and symbolism as gangster meets clown. A large cube glides back and forth across the thrust stage, alternately consuming and revealing the world within it, depositing new settings from its curtained interior or swallowing them whole. The effect is both practical and deeply Brechtian.

Robbie Butler’s lighting is stark, sculptural, and attentive to the narrative. Meanwhile, music by Placebo provides a sinister, insistent undercurrent, a soundscape that speaks of corruption and permanence. The excellent onstage house band, sitting atop the cube, share their elevated platform with judges, orators and finally Ui himself; a literal and figurative ascent that is impossible to ignore.

The rewritten epilogue, addressed unapologetically to a 2026 audience, lands with bruising clarity. In true Brechtian fashion, it refuses catharsis and instead asks an uncomfortable question: are we really going to sit by and watch as this happens again? The legitimised rise of fascism, enabled in plain sight, is not presented as a relic of history but as an ongoing danger.

With any revival of a historical play, the questions must be: why this, and why now? In this production, the answers are unmistakable. The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is not just a reminder of the past; it is an urgent warning, delivered with ferocious intelligence, theatrical daring and absolute clarity of purpose.

This is Brecht as he was meant to be seen, reminding us that the rise is only ever “resistible” if we choose to resist it.

Photos credit: Marc Brenner