The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui review – Mark Gatiss terrifies as Brecht’s fascistic cauliflower racketeer

Swan theatre, Stratford-Upon-AvonGatiss is part Hitler, part Scrooge, part Trump in Seán Linnen’s circus-like production for the RSC Bertolt Brecht’s comic grotesque parable for Hitler’s rise to power has been compared to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, and there is something distinctly Chaplinesque in Mark Gatiss’s cartoon gangster. He is initially tragicomic as Arturo Ui, with his tramp-like clothing, powdered face and melancholy eyes. But he turns truly terrifying as Seán Linnen’s production for the Royal Shakespeare Company takes us through his thuggish ascendancy, Gatiss proving his ability to transform in a way that renders him almost unrecognisable here: part Hitler (signature moustache and hair), part Scrooge and part ghoul. He gives Ui distinctive tics and a wavering accent that could be German, or American (mentioning no names). Translated here by Stephen Sharkey, Brecht’s play juxtaposes Ui’s take-over of Chicago’s cauliflower racket with the rise of the Third Reich, scene by scene, with mobster characters representing the likes of Joseph Goebbels (Givola, played by LJ Parkinson) and Ernst Röhm (Roma, played by Kadiff Kirwan). Dogsborough (Chri