RICHARD III (Shakespeare Happy Hours)*****

 

By Alan

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHFFPTmZkP8

Available till: indefinitely

Once upon a time there was a man called Richard who really wanted to be king. Richard would do anything in order to bring him closer to the crown, whether that meant picking up wives at funerals or killing anyone who happened to be in his way. When his brother, King Edward IV, fell ill to natural causes, Richard’s dream finally seemed to be within his grasp. But it is very difficult to cause so much suffering without making enemies and Richard needs to watch out…

I really liked this performance of Richard III. Colin Hurley plays Richard as a gentle man in public and his opening speech is quite chatty. But he smiles like a politician and that puts me right off. He’s really a vicious man and some people can see it but some people can’t.

Laura Piccoli makes it very clear Lady Anne has got Richard’s number but he has lots of ways of persuading people to do things. Ella Mock is very good at playing men but you wouldn’t guess that from their feminine performance as Queen Elizabeth (I’m saying their as Ella prefers gender neutral pronouns). I like the way they react to everything the other characters say without going over the top. Deb Radloff as Queen Margaret is quite scary. You really don’t want to mess with her. When these three women get together they are like The Not So Merry Wives of Windsor.

The Duke of Clarence trusts Richard and that’s a very bad idea. Tom Kanji plays him as a bit of an idiot and I am not sure he would be a very good king but I like him. Henry Tudor who is played by Dhruv Iyengar is the kind of man I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of.

Murder scenes are horrible so I was surprised when the scene where Tyrrell and the Murderer went after Clarence was really funny. The Murderer talks like murder is a normal thing to do and the way Clarence tried to talk himself out of trouble was funny too. But the actual deaths are really sad especially when it is a nice person.

A lot of the people who died came back as ghosts and they used different effects and it was really good.

The children were played by cuddly animals which is normal in this series and it works really well. Wilson Wilsonian who is a bear has been in lots of the Shakespeare Happy Hours series. He isn’t in this play very much but he is always great to watch.

Richard III is not a nice man at all in this play but some things that happen in the play aren’t definitely true. Some of the things Richard does in the play probably did happen but some of them might not have been done by him and some definitely weren’t. But this is a play not a history book so I don’t think it really matters if not all of it is true and Shakespeare has turned the rumours into a really good play.