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The evidently well connected creatives behind this production went so far in their attempt to reframe Shakespeare’s monarchical tragedy ‘Richard II’ as a Westminster thriller that it premiered in the actual House of Commons (with a one-off special performance to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death).
Unless you were there, you’ll now have to settle for the slightly less magnificent Arcola Theatre in Dalston. But it’s fair to say you’re unlikely to miss what directors Jack Gamble and Quentin Beroud are trying to do – modern English captions on live video feeds constantly describe the action in terms of political debates and tabloid scandals.
Does it work? Well, not really – though it’s not the end of the world that it doesn’t. The problem with ‘Richard II’ is that it’s very explicitly about a king and the tragedy of his hubristic belief in his divine right and his failure to comprehend his subjects. Conceivably it might have been reinterpreted as the tragedy of a to-the-manor-born Tory unable to understand why the political tide has turned against him (Richard’s ill-advised confiscation of Bolingbroke’s estate has the vague air of a backfiring George Osborne wheeze). But the production seems unsure what to do with its title character. Tim Delap’s Richard is just a bit boring, an apparently basically all right chap whose inability to accept what is portrayed as defeat in a snap election is baffling (and whose eventual assassination is incomprehensible).
Still, he’s not even the main character in this snappy edit of the play that places Hermione Gulliford’s Bolingbroke – here Harri, not Harry – as pretty much the lead. And she’s fantastic, nimbly dancing through Shakespeare’s verse as a snarling, sarcastic political animal who effortlessly outmanoeuvres the bungling king when he provokes her ire. It should also be noted that despite the frequently obtrusive framing, this is a lucid production in which the action is easy to follow even if the psychology is bewildering.