“Richard II” at Bridge Theatre
Neil Dowden on South Bank
20 February 2025
So, after almost two years of hosting the fabulous, post-Covid money-spinner Guys and Dolls, plays return to the Bridge Theatre with Shakespeare’s Richard II. Artistic director Nicholas Hytner had previously used the same style of immersive theatricality – with some of the audience mingling with the cast in crowd scenes – equally successfully in Julius Caesar and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The staging for Richard II is different: again modern dress (following on from Hytner’s Shakespeare productions at his former domain in the National Theatre), but this time traverse-style with a narrow stage jutting out far into the arena with the audience close by on three sides. With Jonathan Bailey compelling in the title role, this is a fast-paced, thrilling, and lucid account of Shakespeare’s most poetic and tragic history play.
Jonathan Bailey as Richard II.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
Hytner has amended the text in places for accessible storytelling. Here, on being banished for life by Richard, Mowbray explicitly claims that he killed the Duke of Gloucester on the king’s orders, which is a shame as the ambiguities of the motives of Mowbray, Richard, and Bullingbrook are what make the opening scenes so fascinating. But having former loyal courtier Bagot murder Richard in Pomfret Castle at the end makes more sense as he has already betrayed his master by changing sides and (mistakenly) thinks this is an opportunity to further his cause with the new king Henry.
With on-stage time only two hours 20 minutes, this version is also slightly slimmed down to keep up narrative momentum. Unfortunately, the well-known garden scene where the state of the nation is discussed as a metaphor in horticultural terms is cut. The widowed Duchess of Gloucester is omitted, and Queen Isabel’s role truncated (though admittedly she’s a marginal, blended character who makes little impact in the original). The detailed historical background is not allowed to clutter a gripping power struggle which – with the court wearing business suits – could be corporate in nature, enhanced by Grant Olding’s Succession-like music.
Of course the medieval concept of the “divine right of kings” is crucial to the play. Even when it was first performed in late Elizabethan England 200 years after the events narrated, showing a God-ordained monarch being deposed would have sent shock waves through those watching (and indeed the Earl of Essex’s men paid for an exclusive performance the day before their rebellion). That sense of spiritual high stakes may not prevail any more – we are more attuned to the corrupting effects of absolute power, so the idea of getting rid of a wayward king may seem eminently justifiable to us. However, the famous elegiac speech by John of Gaunt anticipating England’s imminent civil strife and that of the Bishop of Carlisle foretelling the Wars of the Roses which had its roots in Henry seizing the throne from Richard still makes a big impact in this production.
Royce Pierreson as Henry Bullingbrook.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
The personal tragedy of Richard comes through strongly here as well as England’s national tragedy. He may be a terrible ruler – arrogant, capricious, erratic, surrounded by flatterers – portrayed here by Bailey as a spoilt, immature playboy (at one point we see him snorting cocaine). But after he has lost his crown there is genuine pathos as he identifies himself with it so closely that – as shown in him dashing a mirror to pieces – without it he loses his own sense of who he is.
There is a fair amount of humour too. Instead of “gages” rivals throw down their blue UK passports as challenges. Richard comes back from war in Ireland carrying his crown in a plastic shopping bag – only to find his kingdom has crumbled in his absence. There is even more poignant laughter when the abdicating Richard holds out the crown to Bullingbrook only to pull it back three times ending in a sort of tug-of-war. And the York family squabble as the Duke shops his traitorously plotting son to the new king while the Duchess gets on her knees to persuade Henry to exercise clemency provides welcome comic relief.
Hytner’s staging is dynamic and imaginative. Sometimes a hollow appears in the stage used to good effect when Bullingbrook and Mowbray square up in it with knives drawn ready for their “trial by battle”. A huge field gun is wheeled on and aimed at Richard surrendering from the walls of Flint Castle as he appears spotlit in the circle. After Richard’s downfall a war crimes tribunal is presided over by Henry with witnesses emerging from the audience to give their contradictory testimony via a microphone. Bob Crowley’s design also includes litter strewn over the stage as the country goes to rack and ruin.
As Richard, Bailey holds the stage and speaks the verse with impressive naturalness. (He may be a screen star in the likes of Wicked and Bridgerton, as well as an Olivier Award winner for the Sondheim musical Company, but he has already made a mark in Shakespeare with his Cassio in Hytner’s Othello at the National and his Edgar in the Chichester Ian McKellen King Lear.) Here, he is not just a weak-willed hedonist, but a pretty callous manipulator with a sardonic sense of humour. He kicks away the dying Gaunt’s walking frame then after he has died lolls on his hospital bed eating his grapes. There are touches of camp self-dramatization in someone who is constantly role-playing in a mesmerizing performance that keeps you guessing. But although this is not a particularly sympathetic Richard, Bailey does convey his self-destructive behaviour with convincing passion.
Royce Pierreson is a very worthy sparring partner as his nemesis Henry Bullingbrook, avoiding the temptation to portray him as a power-grabbing opportunist in a subtle performance that suggests both personal ambition and duty to his country. Martin Carroll does a fine job stepping in as understudy for the indisposed Clive Wood to play John of Gaunt as a patriot aghast at what lies in a future he won’t live to see himself. Phoenix Di Sebastiani makes a rugged, fiery Mowbray (whom we see assassinated before boarding a ship). Michael Simkins is the pragmatic Duke of York who backs the new king even over his own family, Amanda Root the boldly determined Duchess, and Vinnie Heaven her beloved troublesome son Aumerle who alone continues his loyalty to the doomed Richard.
