Review by Romola Nuttall, first year PhD in English Literature

Historical issues at heart of Richard II made brilliantly clear by Gregory Doran in this return to the Barbican for Shakespeare’s quarter-centenary

The final image of this production is not in Shakespeare’s text, but it illuminates perfectly the central issue of his play, the sacrilege of deposing a king.  When David Tennant, Christ-like in a white tunic as the dead Richard appears on the bridge, which Stephen Brimson Lewis’s set suspends across the stage, to gaze down at the coffin containing his own body, the concept of ‘the king’s two bodies’ is fully realised.  Shakespeare’s original audiences would have taken Richard’s quasi-divine status for granted but the idea that monarchs ruled by divine right, as flesh and blood representatives of God on earth, is something Doran clearly feels modern audiences need to have spelled out for them.  His production certainly succeeds in doing so.

Tennant’s Richard is an unsatisfactory ruler who has come to care more for the softly lit chambers filled with his vapid favourites, Bushy, Bagot and Green (Martin Bassindale, Nicholas Gerard-Martin and Robert Gilbert), who clap sycophantically after his every line, than actually ruling the country.  Tennant’s effeminate Richard is contrasted effectively with Jasper Britton’s robust Bolingbroke and the sturdy looking lords, who, following Sean Chapman’s Northumberland, join forces to remove Richard from the throne and put Bolingbroke there instead. But this is not just a simple swap, it is a tearing of England’s social fabric, an act of treasonous blasphemy which sets the stage for a period of deeply unsettled history, as the following plays in the RSC’s 2016 ‘King and Country’ cycle go onto show.

The cathedral-like setting of Richard II complete with (projections of) stone naves and a vaulted ceiling sets the right tone from the outset but Tennant’s performance is largely why the production works so well. This play is not a tragedy unless the audience sympathise with the deposed king.  Even when he is at Richard’s worst, gleefully calling his court to John of Gaunt’s deathbed, with the sole intention of seizing all Gaunt’s property, Tennant is captivating. His mercurial voice is matched by a physicality that is both statuesque (no one has ever made holding an orb and sceptre look so natural) and achingly human, he prostrates himself to kiss the ground of his beloved England and ultimately, before the feet of the new king Henry whom he reluctantly crowns.

For all its sadness, there are moments of real humour, particularly in 4.1 with the ridiculous throwing down of gages sequence, and Keith Osborn’s Scroop clanking uncomfortably in full chain mail to a sitting position for Tennant’s ‘For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground’ speech.  Oliver Ford Davies offers the strongest support as the Duke of York, followed closely by his son Aumerle, played by Sam Marks.  Like Aumerle, we fall in love with Richard and although the kiss Doran inserts between the two men in 3.3 is another departure from Shakespeare’s text, it helps to illustrate Richard as a king of two bodies – human and heavenly, modern and medieval.