Edward II, at National Theatre I am not sure whether I should laugh that no other theatre but the National could put on anything quite like Edward II, or cry. This great, big, unwieldy and utterly bewildering epic - made, it would appear, with no budgetary pressures whatsoever, at best a nodding acquaintance to Christopher Marlowe's original work, and precious little talent - is the kind of production that simply could not happen in the commercial West End. Late in the day, even the comrades at the National appeared to feel they might be about to get their fingers burned: on no account would they allow any critics in to see it, even a day before the official first night, always a sign of nervousness. When I snuck in on Monday night, I watched this gigantic bonfire of taxpayers" cash with open-mouthed astonishment. The words of French general Pierre Bosquet, as he contemplated the Charge of the Light Brigade, came irresistibly to mind: "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." Make no mistake, it is, in its way, magnifique: there are lavish robes, suits of armour, collapsing sets, burning fires, a huge cast and full musical accompaniment. This heavily subsidised theatre never divulges how much money it spends on its productions, but this one clearly cost a fortune. Marlowe's Renaissance drama about the king who fell so disastrously in love with Piers Gaveston, the 1st Earl of Cornwall, ought, however, to be a grim affair, not least because the monarch ends up with a red-hot poker inserted, with fatal consequences, into his rectum. For reasons best known to himself, Joe Hill-Gibbins, the director, elects to play it for laughs. John Heffernan's king is a cross between Liberace and Blackadder, and Kyle Soller's Gaveston, in his tight jeans and T-shirt, and with his strange mid-Atlantic accent, looks like an extra out of Queer as Folk. When they snog, the audience, predictably but unhelpfully, titters. Vanessa Kirby, as Edward's long-suffering Queen Isabella, is a willowy, champagne-quaffing, cigarette-puffing blonde, apparently inspired by Paris Hilton. Their son, Prince Edward, is played by a female actress, Bettrys Jones, in what looks like an outfit on loan from the Krankies. A lot of the drama is played out on giant screens on either side of the Olivier Theatre's vast stage. The National ought to know that if people want to watch cinema, they will go to a cinema. Can their actors not be bothered to act upon stages any more? Given the indigestion that all of this caused to my sensibilities, I was surprised that Heffernan, stuck in the middle of it all on the stage, wasn't yearning for Gaviscon a lot more than Gaveston. In almost 10 years of reviewing theatre, I doubt I have been confronted with a bigger load of indigestible old tosh. Almost three hours long - there were, needless to say, a lot of deserters at the interval - I found myself praying for that red-hot poker to come along. When, eventually, it did, no one had thought to heat it, but, in all the circumstances, it was hardly surprising. Tickets: 020 7452 3000 nationaltheatre.org.uk