Richard III
West Yorkshire Playhouse
Leeds
2/5

Richard III is variously categorised as a history or tragedy in Shakespeare’s canon. In Mark Rosenblatt’s revival, however, the play’s black humour is overstated to the point of it being a comedy.

It’s a useful device for getting the audience onto the side of Reece Dinsdale’s “deformed, unfinished” Richard who, with his 1930s moustache and military dress, is as charming as he is ruthless.

He’s nonetheless played in such a way that there’s no sense of character development as he makes his Machiavellian rise to power. This significantly diminishes the impact and emotional involvement of the closing scenes, when he becomes increasingly isolated and consumed by paranoia.  

This is despite some excellent supporting work from Jane Bertish as the embittered Queen Margaret, who hates both Richard and those who stand in his way and Dorothea Myer-Bennett as the anguished Queen Elizabeth, whose sons are killed in the Tower.

The play is also visually arresting, with Conor Murphy’s stage design being a circular space with a central drain, in which blood is mopped away before the show officially starts. Illuminated by a lighting rig that descends to form prison walls, it’s a clinical environment where recorded confessions are played back and life support machines beep with no signs of hope.

Despite these contemporary props Rosenblatt never quite makes the transition into a truly modern production, as if to balance the play between a history and current affairs in the wake of Richard’s exhumation and reburial.

This, combined with the lack of character development, leaves it a frustratingly uninvolving production despite its flashes of brilliance.

Showing until 17 October 2015

Review by Susan Darlington