It's great to see the inner mechanics of @thebasecreates as the rehearse their Julius Caesar. Big things are happening! youtu.be/sWmRJLQyYEA?is=WQVf…

Phenomenal episode with @JustineBateman 🙌👏👏 @thebasecreates “The pool of light in the room…” resonates for everyone podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcas…

I don’t think that’s quite the right question. Shakespeare’s deeper concern is what happens when men convince themselves that political righteousness gives them the moral authority to destroy an established order. Brutus believes he is defending Rome against tyranny. He justifies murdering Caesar not primarily for what Caesar has done, but for what he fears Caesar might become. In doing so, he commits an actual evil to prevent a hypothetical one. And therein lies Shakespeare’s warning: the assassination didn’t save Rome. The conspirators believed they were preserving the Republic, yet their actions helped precipitate its final destruction. They proclaimed liberty, but unleashed civil war and ultimately helped clear the way for imperial rule. This is not an isolated theme in Shakespeare’s canon. Consider the history plays. The deposition and subsequent murder of Richard II haunt the reign of Henry IV and remain a moral burden upon Henry V. Even a generation later, the consequences of overthrowing a sovereign cannot simply be erased. The question of legitimacy survives the death of the king. Shakespeare’s rulers are certainly not all virtuous. Some are outright villains. Yet he repeatedly demonstrates that destroying a ruler does not necessarily restore justice, and that the political and moral consequences of usurpation extend far beyond the intentions of those responsible. In many ways, Julius Caesar follows the architecture of Greek tragedy, in which hubris, moral blindness, and the violation of fundamental limits set catastrophe in motion. The tragedy is not merely the death of Caesar, but the presumption that men can destroy an existing order and control what rises in its place. This is particularly relevant in today’s ideological climate, when moral certainty is so often mistaken for moral authority. The righteousness of a cause does not absolve its adherents of the consequences of their actions. From Aeschylus and Sophocles through Shakespeare, Ibsen, Ionesco, and Václav Havel, the theater repeatedly confronts us with the dangers of subordinating conscience and human life to abstract political ideals. It is a warning about what happens when revolution becomes its own moral justification, when the promised end is used to excuse the means, and when those who claim to be liberators presume themselves exempt from the moral order they seek to overturn. The conspirators could kill Caesar. They could not resurrect the Republic. And perhaps that is the enduring warning: the moment a cause grants itself permission to abandon moral restraint in the name of a better world, it risks becoming the very tyranny it claims to oppose.

England, bound in with the triumphant sea Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame... Oli Bennett @thebasecreates with a fresh reading of a very timely speech. youtu.be/y1ETi-M47TE?is=60e-…