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There’s something of the Brit gangster flick to theatre company Antic Disposition’s modern-dress take on ‘Richard III’, a Guy Ritchie flashiness: all sharp suits, booming soundtrack and slick delivery. It slides by entertainingly enough, but feels hollow.
The venue is evocative. The twelfth-century Temple Church, where King John was forced into negotiations that resulted in the Magna Carta and its limitations on the power of the Crown, is a historically apt setting for Shakespeare’s bloody game of thrones. Ben Horslen’s staging unfolds on a catwalk-like strip between two banks of pews, with us looking upwards like plebs.
The acoustics lend proper thunder to the verse, as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, schemes and murders his way to the top. But the shades and radio mics have been done before. This staging only comes to life when we’re given flags to wave at the spoilt princes in the tower by Joe Eyre’s oily Buckingham. The more it embraces political pantomime, revels in the gleeful spin-doctoring of Richard’s ascent, the better it is.
But it never shakes off a glibness that undercuts the play’s rawer, murkier moments. Louise Templeton’s grief-enraged Queen Margaret is a diminished presence, as is Jill Stanford as Richard’s mother. As the duplicitous would-be king himself, a limping, sling-wearing Toby Manley is a dark-mirror version of Tony Blair. He’s impishly fun, but lacks the true sting of aggrieved menace.
There are some neat ideas in this ‘Richard III’. But when diversity in British theatre is a big issue, it’s disappointing to see an all-white cast of 11 actors – particularly in a production with its eyes fixed so firmly on setting Shakespeare in a world we recognise today.