Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II is a high-calibre version of a fascinating story. A king reluctantly yields his crown to a usurper who wants his violent revolt to seem like a peaceful transfer of authority. This delicate, complex narrative is presented as a boardroom power struggle in corporate Britain. Snappy suits for the dukes and princes. Commando uniforms when they take to the battlefield.
Jonathan Bailey (Richard) starts as a swaggering, coke-snorting yuppie who dreams of extending his realm overseas with someone’s else money. Disaster strikes, the crown slips. Calamity sharpens his awareness and he becomes a lyrical philosopher who laments the bewitchments and pitfalls of power. Bailey’s charming, easy-going Richard brilliantly traces the character’s journey from glib party-lover to meditative hermit.
The modern stylings don’t work perfectly. The ‘sceptred isle’ speech sounds banal when delivered by John of Gaunt slumped in an NHS wheelchair. The battle scenes are marred by plastic detritus scraped from a landfill site. And the musical soundtrack surges and fades at random, as if it had a mind of its own. Here’s an idea. If you don’t notice the soundtrack, it needn’t be there. If you do notice it, it shouldn’t be there.
The second half includes two passages of heartbreaking comedy. Richard and Bullingbrook tussle physically over the gold crown like brothers unable to share a box of Quality Street. Later, Michael Simkins and Amanda Root (as York and his wife) beg the new king to spare the life of their wayward son. On their knees, they hobble around the castle floor, pleading and weeping. Tragedy is gloriously fused with absurdity here.
This show is an ideal starting point for Shakespearean newcomers. The play is easy on the eye, always absorbing, simple to follow. And the Bard speaks to us loud and clear. That really matters. Too many Shakespearean productions these days are barmy experiments put together by dogmatic fetishists for their own amusement.
Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Jamie Lloyd, is a case in point. Never mind the script, let’s have an acid-house party. The stage is empty apart from a few office chairs and a plastic crimson heart the size of an ice-cream van. Blizzards of pink confetti fall non-stop, smothering the stage, gathering in drifts, forming hillocks which the actors romp and frolic in. The show offers very few links to Shakespeare’s poignant story about a romance that blossoms in the aftermath of war. The lovers, Beatrice and Benedick, are versions of each other, broken-hearted clowns who use verbal swordplay to hide unknown and unexplained sources of anguish.
The play is easy on the eye, always absorbing, simple to follow. And the Bard speaks to us loud and clear
Does that interest anyone here? Not really. Instead we get a song-and-dance pastiche dominated by club music and cheap clothes from a joke shop. Nasty colours too. Garish blues, livid scarlets, clashes of pinks and browns. The prankster in charge of the costumes has at least spared Tom Hiddleston (Benedick) and Hayley Atwell (Beatrice) from the worst humiliations. The stars look pretty good. He’s in a navy-blue shirt and matching trousers. She wears a glittery jumpsuit held at the waist by a tight scarlet belt. They dance constantly, endlessly, boringly. Atwell poses and twerks like a dehydrated teenager at a rave. When she speaks, she rushes her lines, garbling too many of Beatrice’s subtle and gleaming gems. Unless you know the part well, you’ll miss much of the heroine’s gorgeous, silvery wit. Hiddleston entertains his fans with a corny menu of stripagram routines. He thrusts his pelvis at the crowd. He dry-humps imaginary lovers. He twirls his loose belt around his finger like an unattached Hoover nozzle. Throughout these Chippendale sections, he smirks, nods and winks at the crowd. Shakespeare seems barely an afterthought.
The scenes in the first half are done like skits for a Comic Relief show. The awkward and tender moment when Beatrice invites Benedick ‘to come into dinner’ is ruined by Hiddleston who rips his shirt open in the middle of the dialogue. Sheer vandalism.
Never mind thescript, let’s have an acid-house party
In the second half, the plot grows darker and the show reaches for shades of melancholy that it can’t find. Perhaps that’s not the point. The cheesy energy and the soft-porn details seemed to delight the crowd on press night when the stalls were crammed with hot-flush mums, swooning gay men and adoring celebrities.
Let’s be fair. This show is a big improvement on Jamie Lloyd’s bizarre and depressing version of The Tempest at the same venue. This is fun. The cast have a great time. It’s perfect entertainment for anyone wanting to see two off-duty movie stars pratting around on stage for a couple of hours and reciting the odd dreary speech by some dead bloke written in obsolete English. Purists, stay away. This is an earnest attempt to bring Shakespeare down to the level of cruise-ship entertainment. Mission accomplished.
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