DON’T run before you can walk is usually good advice, and grandee of the historical novel, Philippa Gregory, took it when writing her first stage play, Richard, My Richard.
Running at Shakespeare North Prescot until March 30, Katie Posner’s staging of this gimmick-free retelling of the life of King Richard III (the one who murdered his nephews in the tower) is a bit unambitious, but I wouldn’t let this put you off. It's both inviting and accessible.
This is a punchy tale of political intrigue and bloody murder, made grislier by most of the characters being related. Think Succession in leather pants.
That was the nature of medieval politics, and from a dramatic standpoint, the cast wrings out every drop of this naturally occurring tension.
The play opens with a monologue by none other than History himself, portrayed as a flamboyant and slightly camp scholar by Tom Kanji, from whom Richard, raised from the dead, learns of posterity’s grim portrait.
This clashes violently with his own self-image, which seems to spur on the achingly athletic Kyle Rowe’s intense portrayal of a darkly conscientious, energetic, and undeniably angst-ridden monarch.
With a few usually comic exceptions, the action from then on is as straight as it gets. The actors are competent, the dialogue is tight, and the action is pacey and gripping.
Costumes are simple and historically accurate, and the lighting is sharp, competent, and conventional.
The PR blurb suggests a feminist angle is at work here. I expected the women – Queens Elizabeth and Anne, and Margaret Beaufort – to replace Richard as the real agents of the plot, but they don’t.
Their role in the action isn't obliterated by the men just because they are women; Richard himself proclaims the danger of underestimating ambitious women, and declares he’d never fall into that trap, though he does.
But to claim this play feminises the period is a step too far. Women’s signatures may not appear on official documents of the time, but only a special kind of chauvinist would deny they’d ever had influence.
The drama lasts 140 minutes with a twenty-minute interval, which is just about spot on for the material.
The play ends, naturally, at the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard is trampled to death by the army of turncoat traitor, Lord Stanley. (A strong Prescot connection there, you history buffs.)
Rowe finds the strength to pull back for the death scene, which is good, as it’s here novelist Gregory’s undoubted skill as a wordsmith achieves full flourish.
Richard is laid to rest, this time in Leicester Cathedral, with one of the very few props, a single white rose of York.
It’s a fitting end for the newly rehabilitated monarch, who, love him or hate him, was surely one of England’s most interesting.
Richard, My Richard really worked for me, and I have no hesitation recommending it.
If you’re tired of theatrical bells and whistles and you’re ready for a good yarn from a storyteller who really knows what she’s doing, I dare say it’ll work for you too.
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