Oxford University drama company Drame Fatale is putting a 1980s Soviet spin on Christopher Marlowe’s political thriller Edward II in a new production at Oxford Playhouse. William Crossley finds out more

Edward II is among the earliest English historical plays but it still has a lot to tell us about modern struggles for power, according to Calam Lynch, who plays the ill-fated monarch at the Playhouse.

Drame Fatale’s production switches the action from medieval England to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, exploring the relationship between the public and private and personal and political realms, with betrayal lurking everywhere.

Calam said: “In the USSR there was a confrontation between two factions, reformers and hardliners, and in the play Edward and his small group of allies face the English nobles.

“I think there’s quite a Cold War feel to the drama, with a lot unsaid and implied, rather than there being a direct threat. The tension in the play slowly builds and builds over three acts before it comes to a head.

“You don’t know which of the nobles wants power, rather like the people in various factions vying for influence in the USSR.”

The key relationship that sparks the action is between two men, Edward and Piers Gaveston, and how those around them react to their close and intense bond.

Calam added: “You can’t escape from the issue of homophobia in the play, with the crusty nobles trying to do down Edward – that kind of bigotry is still prevalent today.

“Power-hungry people with autocratic tendencies are still with us too, so I think there’s plenty of contemporary resonance.

“There’s so much there for us as actors.

“And with this play, there are no bad parts, everyone has something important to contribute.”

Calam, a fourth-year classics student at Somerville College, is aiming for an acting career after he graduates this summer.

He said: “I have family members who are actors, so I’ve been surrounded by the world of theatre from a young age, but really got into it myself once I got to Oxford.

“I’m looking to make it a career when I graduate. I have an agent and fit in auditions around my studies.”

He has already landed a small part in the forthcoming film Dunkirk, about the evacuation of British and French troops from the French port in 1940 as the German army closed in. Calam plays a sailor from the Kent port of Deal, helping to crew one of the ‘Little Ships’ used to lift soldiers from the beaches.

But before he gets to see himself on the big screen, he is looking forward to treading the boards at the Playhouse again, after first appearing there in 2015 in a production of Pentecost, by David Edgar, about the discovery of a mural in a church in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

He hopes his fellow cast members, almost all of them undergraduates, including a number of first years, will find the experience as rewarding as he did on his Playhouse debut.

He said: “When I was in Pentecost it was intimidating at first, but I get a huge rush from being on stage and I got help and advice from family members who had played there – I had to learn how to use my voice – but I soon felt ready for it.”

Drame Fatale’s Edward II is at Oxford Playhouse from Wednesday, January 25, to Saturday, January 28. Performances are at 7.30pm on the Wednesday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm on the Thursday and Saturday and 8pm on the Friday. Ticket prices start from £11.50 and they are available from the theatre box office in Beaumont Street, by calling 01865 305305 or online at oxfordplayhouse.com