In a small room in the corner of the University of Edinburgh’s Bristo Square, one of history’s most famous leaders is brought back to life – and given his own TED Talk.
Bread and Circuses – which takes its name from the famous phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal – offers us Julius Caesar in all his glory, portrayed by actor and comic Seamus Lavan, with the Roman dictator delivering a bizarre, action-packed sermon on leadership mindset and what it takes to reach the top of your game.
In all his get-up – toga included – Lavan bears a resemblance to Joaquin Phoenix’s Emperor Commodus from the 2000 film Gladiator. This seems to be a handy coincidence, with the actor directly referencing the blockbuster throughout his show.
Lavan’s show is a tongue-in-cheek dissection of many of the most talked about and controversial topics in today’s social sphere – and is packed with business buzz words and references to the over-the-top practices that lifestyle influencers urge everyone to follow in order to be the best, and excel at life.
“Manosphere” figures like Andrew Tate, self-improvement gurus like Ashton Hall and Steven Bartlett, and multi-millionaire/man desperate not to die, Bryan Johnson, are all parodied throughout. Never exclusively by name, but it is fairly obvious who Lavan is alluding to when he makes these references.
The show does well in the way it covers these topics, but these people and their belief systems have become so hotly debated and chastised both formally and in parody that it can sometimes seem like there isn’t much more to add to the conversation. Indeed, it doesn’t feel like Lavan truly blazes any new trails in the way he criticises these topics, but it is certainly refreshing to have the jokes and quips dropped on you out of the blue during an otherwise semi-serious monologue, which is what Lavan excels at throughout.
The audience plays a big part throughout the 55-minute runtime, with Lavan selecting one lucky (unlucky?) member to play Caesar’s ally, and later his assassin, Brutus, who he consistently harkens back to and pulls in to participate time and again.
Overall, Bread and Circuses is a daft but strangely topical show – despite Caesar being 2,125 years old. A show centred around the man that influenced so much of the Western world and how he’d look if he existed today and had a couple million online followers that he preached self-improvement and “grindset” to certainly makes for an entertaining hour or so.
