The cast of Antony and Cleopatra

A CAST of 21 actors is performing Shakespeare’s most expansive tragedy in what is believed to be one of the country’s first full-run fringe theatre productions.

The Acting Gymnasium, based in Swiss Cottage, has been rehearsing on Zoom and in Camden Town pubs and greens throughout the lockdown.

It opened a week’s staging of Antony and Cleopatra at Theatro Technis, Camden Town, on Tuesday.

Measures have been put in place to protect the audience, staff and actors including temperature checks, two-metre seat distancing and “actor bubbles”.

Director Gavin McAlinden said: “Actors are encouraged not to mix with other bubbles throughout the run of the play, and quarantine themselves when not at the theatre, to protect the show and the audience. Our production has limited props and the actors do not share props.”

The Shakespeare play follows a production of Ibsen’s Wild Duck and Buchner’s Woyzeck at the theatre.

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Mr McAlinden added: “Ibsen is like Everest to climb for actors and Antony and Cleopatra is a big, big big epic. It was an incredibly challenging thing to do, there are three battles, two big deaths scenes – set in Rome and Egypt. But we did it and we are all delighted.

“The only bummer is we haven’t been getting the audiences we should. But we understand that people are completely justified in not venturing out.”

Shakespeare is believed to have written Antony and Cleopatra while working from home, during a bubonic plague lockdown in 1606.