Richard III (RSC)

I had a hunch this couldn’t be as good as I’d hoped. Henry Goodman turned in one of the definitive Shakespearean performances of our time when he played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the National in the 1999, winning an Olivier Award for his efforts. Inevitably, expectations were sky high for his outing now as the dastardly crookback Richard III.

In Sean Holmes‘ production, the evening begins with a terrific theatrical flourish. Red curtains fall to the stage and a single spotlight picks out a pair of white hands which part the curtains to reveal a top-hatted, besuited Goodman, looking for all the world like a cross between an Edwardian impresario and Burgess Meredith as Batman’s nemesis, the Penguin.

Within the opening soliloquy, Goodman dances, darts into the audience and snatches a programme before tearing it to shreds, then leaves the stage to stab a dog and disrobes to reveal his twisted body, even peeling off part of his face to expose a vivid birthmark. His is clearly not a Richard in thrall to Olivier. If anything, it put me in mind of Robert Lindsay who, a few years ago at this theatre, reduced one well-known critic to near apoplexy for delivering a Richard in pantomime mode.

Goodman’s is a bravura performance, beautifully spoken, modulating effortlessly from villainy to mock contrition. But it is one which, like Lindsay’s, in embracing Richard’s theatricality and sheer enjoyment of his own archness, inevitably foregoes any real sense of evil. And there’s an additional problem. Thanks to director Holmes’ decision to set the play in Edwardian England – all frock coats and stiff formality (designed by Anthony Lamble) – the cartoon quality of this Richard (lolloping, grinning, outrageous) is even more heightened, even more bizarre.

There are some terrific moments. Richard’s wooing of Lady Anne before the still bleeding corpse of her husband, slain by Richard, is wonderfully done, and Goodman’s subsequent soliloquy: “Was ever a woman thus wooed; was ever a woman thus won?” catches beautifully a man intoxicated by a sense of his own power.

There are too some fine supporting performances: Malcolm Sinclair as Richard’s lieutenant, Buckingham, is brutally suave; Ian Gelder, as Richard’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, is eloquent and moving. Sheila Morris, as Queen Margaret, seems woefully underpowered, however, and is hamstrung by an awful cod French accent.

It is marvellous to have an actor of Goodman’s calibre at Stratford, confirming a belief that the RSC is on the up. Ultimately, however, Holmes gives us a Richard III that’s undeniably entertaining but not one to linger long in the memory.

– Pete Wood