The Stage

Richard II

Published Monday 20 August 2007 at 10:05 by John Thaxter

Michael Boyd continues his chronological trawl through Shakespeare’s History plays with a marathon triple-bill of England at war with itself, running from just after breakfast until almost bedtime.

It starts with a brilliantly staged Richard II that stands comparison with one’s rosiest memories of the RSC’s glory days. Destined for The Roundhouse in London next year, the production meanwhile makes exhilarating use of the Courtyard Theatre, the RSC’s temporary Stratford home.

A deep thrust stage, with the audience stacked on three sides, is backed by Tom Piper’s cylindrical setting of doors and passages in tones of leather and old timber, memorably lit by Heather Carson to turn approaching figures into threatening shadows, or dazzle us with scenes of pomp and circumstance.

Much of the action uses rope-work and ladders, towering above the audience, cheekily deployed when Clive Wood’s tough-talking Bolingbroke faces John Mackay’s insolent Mowbray in a hazardous tournament, each seated astride swinging hobbyhorses, destined to clash in mid-air until Jonathan Slinger’s King Richard intervenes.

Recent Richards have been sly intellectuals or political weaklings, but Slinger boldly revives the tradition of a man more queen than King, a rouged white face, Gloriana goldilocks wig and a camp swagger as he makes his first entrance. Obsessed by kingship and the crown he delivers some of the wittiest lines in the canon - almost Wildean in this performance - while his camp-followers Bushy and Green have an earring painfully snatched off in a scene of stark homophobia.

Among a large cast, Roger Watkins’ Gaunt relishes his This England speech from a wheelchair, RSC veteran Richard Cordery is outstanding as York, while Maureen Beattie plays for maximum comedy as his lady-wife begging for her son to be pardoned for disloyalty.

One must also note Lex Shrapnel, a newcomer of great promise, instantly catching the eye as a Harry Percy raring to go - the Hotspur of the second play in the trilogy.