The Stage

Richard II

Published Thursday 6 October 2005 at 13:40 by John Thaxter

Distinguished critic JC Trewin’s formula for the perfect Richard II was a combination of unfussy production and a leading actor making shimmering music of his downfall. Here we get neither.

Trevor Nunn’s busy staging opens with the gorgeous ceremonial of a Hanoverian coronation but soon descends into a modern-dress, multimedia world, every move observed by intrusive television crews.

Julian Glover’s wheelchaired Gaunt delivers his ‘this England’ speech to camera, followed by regular soundbite repeats on giant screens, sandwiched between gritty newsreel scenes of Poll Tax demos, while Richard’s distracted queen (model-thin Genevieve O’Reilly) does a fashion shoot with a Vogue camera team.

In the title role, Kevin Spacey is strong on cool insolence, respecting both the verse form and rhyme endings, and with a specially effective deposition scene. But elsewhere his monotone delivery can overlay the meaning. And when faced with Bolingbroke’s insurgency he has something of Maurice Sendak’s smirking Max, ruling the Wild Things with sudden bursts of anger while never taking the dangers too seriously.

Ben Miles, making his striking Old Vic debut as Bolingbroke, is equally at home in a well-cut suit or military commander’s fatigues, despatching traitors, while allowing no crack to show in his smart politicising reverence for anointed kingship.

If some minor roles seem undercast, there are powerful performances from Oliver Cotton as the doughty Northumberland and the scene-stealing Peter Eyre as a York of divided loyalties, whose dignity is finally undercut by Susan Tracy as his Duchess in a crash helmet, making a pantomime-style plea on behalf of her treacherous son Aumerle.