If I was to liken Cyrano de Bergerac to a film, it would be a film that is never really going to achieve a best picture nomination, but has an uncontested winner of the best actor Oscar. I might also say that it has a couple of fine chances of supporting role nominations and that it is finished before the Titanic finally hits the bottom of the ocean. However, it is not a film, but my flight of fancy very much sums up the whole situation. No matter how slightly dodgy the foundations are of this partnership between Royal & Derngate and Northern Stage, you cannot help leaving three and a quarter hours latter with the shear dazzle of the lead performance shining in your eyes. My sole encounter with Edmond Rostand's 1897 story of the physically challenged, poetical hero comes from the 1987 Steve Martin film Roxanne. When I first saw it in the early nineties I was an the perfect age to fall in love with Daryl Hannah's Roxanne. However I had neither Christian's (Chris in t...