Richard II

Synopsis

At the age of only ten, Richard Plantagenet succeeded his father Edward III as King of England. It was 1377 and a time of great hardship following the Black Death, but Richard lived lavishly at home and, abroad, pursued an expensive and futile war with France. The taxes he imposed provoked the famous ‘Peasants Revolt’ of 1381 and his attempt to rule autocratically alienated both nobility and Parliament. Shakespeare’s loosely historical but theatrically wonderful account of Richard’s last days concentrates on his most fateful error - the exile of his cousin Henry Bullingbrook and the seizure of his Lancastrian estates. Bullingbrook would return to England, topple Richard and take the throne himself as Henry IV, setting the stage for the bloody ‘Wars of the Roses’ between York and Lancaster. The play’s extraordinary beauty and simplicity, and its study of a man reduced from – as he saw it - divinely appointed King, to a mere mortal without role, freedom or friends, put it among the most moving of all Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Our Review:

16 April 2008

After a long wait Michael Boyd’s cycle of history plays has finally reached London and while the Roundhouse doesn’t quite have the intimacy of the Courtyard Theatre, it’s a pretty good approximation.

Richard II is probably Shakespeare’s most politically daring play; a piece that shows the deposing of a monarch that succeeds. There’s also an uncomfortable modern parallel that wasn’t there when the show commenced its epic run – the country’s bankrupt finances that force Richard into the confiscation of Gaunt’s property.

But the politics in this play often take second place to the more human struggle between Richard and Bolingbroke and the main questions that every director has to consider: how much is Richard a bad king? And while he’s undoubtedly a poor king, are Bolingbroke’s actions justifiable?

“Know you not that I am Richard?” Queen Elizabeth is reputed to have said and Boyd seems to have had the monarch in mind for his portrayal of the king: Jonathan Slinger’s whi...

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Latest User Review

Paul Wallis - 10 May 2008:

The staging of this production is superb and the acting matches the staging - strong throughout, a reflection perhaps of the fact that this group have been together for so long now. A great advert for the ensemble! Jonathan Slinger gives a fine central performance full of ambiguities. There is no doubt that all the great Shakespeare characters await him. Congrats to the RSC too on the wonderful theatre they have created within the Roundhouse. Please, please, please preserve it and perform there again. This space deserves to be used over and over as it suits Shakespeare so much more than any West End theatre. ...

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