Richard II

[nwhyte]

I am joining the chorus of praise for the BBC staging of Richard II last weekend. The high point is certainly Patrick Stewart's fantastic rendition of the "This Sceptred Isle" speech, as John of Gaunt, in the second act, but it's all rather fantastic - especially Ben Whishaw in the title role and Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke. It also rather

Comments

[anonymous]

Shakespeare isn't good for accuracy. Richard's Queen (and second wife) was a child at the time (and did love him, but not in that way, too young even by the standards of then), so their leavetakings in the play far too adult. Recently saw Edward II at the Royal Exchange. Can see the point about plot, but the voice was so different, can not see how anybody can suggest Marlowe wrote any of Shakespeare's plays for him!

The iconography of Richard II seeing himself as Christ though is there front and centre in all of the surviving paintings of him. He did actively encourage people to portray him this way. No King who was King that young turned out well, they all turned out odd.

[gareth_rees]

I agree: Ben Whishaw was mesmerizing as Richard. This part has to carry the play, and he succeeded. I felt at points that he was channelling Johnny Depp channelling Keith Richards and that a line like "You will always remember this as the day you nearly killed King Richard" was about to appear. The director Rupert Goold said that it was actually Michael Jackson they had in mind, hence the monkey.