Richard II

Over the past few days we having been watching the version of Richard II produced for the BBC by Neal Street Productions and others in 2012. Starring the stage management department and no less a luminary than David Suchet, now retired from his role as Poirot.

What I mean by starring the stage management department is that somebody has had a lot of fun finding all kinds of interesting places in which to stage the play and sourcing all kinds of interesting clothes in which to put the actors, particularly the king. While somebody else thought it would be a good idea to really camp the  king up, just to make sure we got the idea that the king was a foppish twat being swept aside by the manly Bolingbroke.

With the result that the tournament scene, the landing from Ireland scene and the murder scene (with a stripped down Richard slaughtered with cross bow bolts, au Saint Sebastian) seemed particularly silly.

Occasional flashes of light from Bolingbroke, particularly when he paused to think about whether he was doing the right thing; a man of action inclined to be disturbed by reflection. And a man who really believed in the Lord in Heaven.

Which left me with the thought that it is hard enough to make films which are set in the middle ages, and even harder to make what starts as a play into a film which attempts realism, with real pigs being slaughtered and real knights in armour running about. Lots of distractions from the central drama of the king and his usurper, which was, for me, rather lost in it all. To use a mathematical analogy, there is no continuous map from the drama to the real world. You can only do it at all with lots of tears, mends and patches - with, in this case, a rather unsatisfactory result.

Checking in wikipedia, I was reminded that Shakespeare was a bit unkind about Richard. Being a child king in that rough age was not a good idea and Richard was clearly not strong enough to make good from that bad start, although he did manage more than twenty years on the job, getting on for twice as long as his usurper. Including a successful first campaign bashing the Irish.

Reference 1: http://nealstreetproductions.com/. The people who live near the famous Neal's Yard, once a dusty warehouse full of brown jute sacks of dried pulses and grains for sale to the advanced guard of the organic food movement, and now sophisticated retailer.