This new version of Cyrano de Bergerac is written by the director Simon Evans and a grime poet Deloris Stevenson.  Although Edmond Rostand wrote the original in the 1890s there was a real person called Cyrano de Bergerac in the 17th century. Most elements of the original have been adhered to, the sword fighting, the verse and the music. The storyline is a romantic one: Cyrano (Adrian Lester) has been brought up with the beautiful Roxane (Susannah Fielding) and they have always has a friendship but not a romance, although Cyrano is deeply in love with Roxanne.

The impediment to Roxanne’s feelings is maybe politically incorrect in so far as it involves nose shaming and the extra large nose sported by Cyrano.  Ironically large noses have never been a problem for the French who are also happy to have a reputation for larger than average sexual physique. I have never been attracted to the extra small noses inherited by the Scandinavian Vikings.  Remember the Chinese call the British  the “large noses”. Roxanne has two requirements for a lover, that he be fair of face and a master wordsmith.  She has been married before and is now a widow but she spies Christian (Levi Brown) a handsome young man (tick) but whose idea of a good vocabulary is to know as many collective nouns as possible (no tick).