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The Joys of Richard III

Nick Bourne explains why Richard III should be appreciated more.

By Nick Bourne

4 Sep 2011, 00:08

I have always had a fascination for Richard III for as long as I can remember.  

At school our History teacher, Ian Grant, was a committed Ricardian, believing that Richard III was not guilty of the heinous crimes with which he is charged by Shakespeare in his history.  It was all due to propaganda, our teacher said and therefore we were supposed to take his word for that.  Shakespeare, of course, wrote his play with Elizabeth I on the throne.  It would have been unwise, foolhardy and probably suicidal then to have painted the Tudors as anything other than innocent in all of the murders that led ultimately to Henry Tudor assuming the throne.

Our teacher introduced us to Josephine Tey’s ‘Daughter of Time (The title is a quote from Francis Bacon who identifies Truth as the Daughter of Time)’.  This is a work of detection by Inspector Grant who lay prostrate on his hospital bed looking at a picture of Richard III and becoming convinced that there was no way he could have committed all of these dreadful crimes.  The only rationale he needed to persuade him initially was that Richard III had a kindly face.  Therefore not only could he not have murdered his ill fated nephews but became the most convenient vehicle to be made into a royal scapegoat.  Ultimately, and of course, unsurprisingly, , his detective work of applying modern detective techniques to the past, was rewarded by the conclusion that Richard III was not guilty of any of these heinous crimes.

History repeats itself, so they say and interestingly this same device of an Inspector lying in hospital solving a crime from long ago was used again by Colin Dexter in The Wench is Dead where Inspector Morse is laid up in hospital with a troublesome ulcer.

At Cambridge I was a proud founder member of the Wicked Uncle Society.  The society’s primary, though undeclared, aim was to have a good time. To allay any criticisms, it had that in common with a lot of Cambridge societies.  Another one that springs to mind is the Flat Earth Society which used to have suppers backwards, so starting with the port and cheese and finishing with the soup course.  This did not accomplish anything except sometimes a funny tummy for the diners but I suppose it was fun to live your life backwards for those few moments. Perhaps some of us should have got out more.  The Wicked Uncle Society’s professed aim and, of course, it did unite its membership, was to clear the name of Richard III.  Some of its members, and the author exonerates himself entirely from this, used to go around speaking to each other in assumed medieval English promising to see each other anon and wishing thee well and all that sort of harmless nonsense. No one thought about this in terms of how it earned a notch on the prat factor scale.  However, its membership had a shared belief in the innocence of Richard III, and not all of its membership was from Yorkshire either.   However, despite its best intentions, as far as I know, no evidence was uncovered by the society to acquit Richard III of the heinous crimes although (or perhaps because) we all had lots of fun, attempting (or not) to solve the mystery.

I have seen several productions of Richard III.  I saw Ian McKellern in 1990 when, I am afraid, I allowed the relatively modern setting of Nazism to irritate me enough to interfere with my enjoyment of the performance.   Perhaps I did not appreciate the satire of using the tyranny of Richard III to draw parallels.

Kevin Spacey’s performance as Richard III at the Old Vic was towering.  His performance was masterful, credible and seemingly effortless.  It served even to distract me from some of the, for me, irritating parts of the production.  One become more charitable when one is  pleased and readily forgive the trees for the wood!  I suppose I am a purist but scenes on the London underground, people in wheelchairs and nurses dressed akin to Florence Nightingale do seem to me rather misplaced in a production of William Shakespeare.  Never mind, this performance from the outset was brilliant.  It rightly earned a standing ovation at the end of the performance.

I get ahead of myself.  A quick picnic supper in the nearby Emma Cons gardens preceded the performance. She was a noted social reformer and had been curator of the Old Vic in the middle of the 19th Century. This was an enjoyable prelude to the performance.  We could see from here queues of people for return tickets.  This was a good signal.  

What made Kevin Spacey’s Richard III so compelling was the way he drew in the audience.  He does this with nods, smirks and conspiratorial winks and nudges to the audience to make us complicit in the crimes of Richard III, but at no stage does he allow the part to descend to pantomime villain status.  Richard remains scary, wicked and wrong but still plausible.  I have never seen an actor accomplish that with the conviction and such control yet with such seeming ease that Kevin Spacey did.  This was probably one of the longest productions of live theatre I have seen (3 and half hours) and Spacey did not miss, falter or as far as I can see, need any cues or prompts on his lines.  All were delivered naturally and easily by a master accomplished in his art.

The pace of the play is considerable.  The gusto, verve and enthusiasm of the whole cast was contagious.  Many of the cast were clearly from America (some across the pond accents were occasionally noticeable), and the programme makes clear that there is an exchange scheme and that it is all done with Equity’s approval.

With Kevin Spacey at the helm, the Old Vic is clearly in good hands.  In the mid Victorian era when Emma Cons, the social reformer, was the driving force it was known as the Royal Victoria Coffee and Music Hall.  The title ‘Theatre’ apparently was thought to have impure associations!  

Once more, to anybody who has the chance to see it this was a triumph for Director Sam Mendes, and the entire cast, and despite my purist Shakespearian tendency being offended by scenes on the London tube, a pre-recorded video clip being played and other more contemporary anachronisms on the sets and in the costumes, this was London theatre at its best.