Screen stardom is generally anointed at the box office so it's a very real delight to find the fast-rising Jonathan Bailey taking time out from his ascendant celluloid career to return to his stage roots in Richard II.
His director, Nicholas Hytner, provided an early Shakespearean platform for this performer more than two decades ago as Cassio in the National's Othello, and the screen's current Fiyero in Wicked, soon to be seen in the latest Jurassic reboot, here graduates to one of the most luxuriant roles in the canon: a part so fulsomely written that the language itself can move a listener to tears.
So it's with some surprise that I confess to having sat through this staging dry-eyed, impressed though I was throughout by the handsome, hydraulic-intensive design (courtesy the great Bob Crowley, a longtime Hytner colleague) and by the swiftness with which a male-heavy play packed with warring nobles and loyal courtiers is delivered to an audience who may not be entirely prepared for the prep that often goes with the Bard's succession-heavy Histories.
And so it is that the coke-snorting, modern-day, bro-heavy vibe, not to mention Grant Olding's music, puts one in mind of TV's Succession, as does the no-nonsense briskness to a narrative that begins with talk of God – our title character is, after all, His regal emissary – only to track Richard's discovery of what it means to be human. This trajectory is accompanied by a degree of self-reflection that even Hamlet might envy, and one can imagine the Danish price himself positing, "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me". (It's no accident that many over time have played both parts, from Gielgud and Derek Jacobi to Ralph Fiennes and David Tennant.)
The challenge is to move from snark and petulance to something more open-throated and comparably open-hearted: Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic was good at the first task, only to stumble at the second. Bailey, an infinitely warmer performer, certainly has the toolkit to chart the character's acquaintanceship with humility, and may as the run continues deepen his attack so that an initial peevishness morphs into something that can pierce directly to the heart.
For now, one wishes for rather greater vocal amplitude and range and for the sort of ready command of the rectangular playing space exhibited by Royce Pierreson (pictured above with Bailey), himself a familiar TV face who here gives the standout performance of the night as Richard's nemesis, Bullingbroke (aka Bolingbroke), who will go on to be Henry IV.
Quick to bare his chest in combat near the start, Pierreson displays a superb instinct for some decidedly knotty language, and helps chart a path through an intricate narrative abetted by a family tree in the programme that newbies to this terrain will seize upon with glee. Decisive, yes, but also beset by contradiction, the actor gives full weight to the wordplay inherent in language like, "I hate the murderer, love him murderèd", and one only wishes that this Henriad were allowed to continue so that we could see Pierreson carry on with the role.
The monochrome design, chandeliers and all, gives off a Trump Tower aesthetic solemnity on the way to the single bed occupied near the close by the emotionally chastened Richard, Bailey emerging for the bows in a t-shirt and barefoot, having some while before tossed aside a crown that he has been inclined to treat in any case as an unwanted stocking stuffer.
You sense his Richard trying on statesmanship like a somewhat ill-fitting raiment even as he revels in the various crises besetting a realm for which this manchild of a ruler is emotionally ill-equipped. This "dear dear land" is under threat, or so says the rhetorically effulgent John of Gaunt (Martin Carroll filling in for an indisposed Clive Wood), and the production gently points to modern-day equivalents to the limbo here on view without, thank heavens, recourse to platitudes or placards.
The Duke and Duchess of York, choice supporting roles both, are in the capable hands of Michael Simkins and Amanda Root, and an attention-grabbing Seamus Dillane (whose Tony-winning father, Stephen, would have made a great Richard II in his day) confirms the promise exhibited just recently in The Invention of Love as the Duke of Surrey. Badria Timimi (pictured above) makes a one-scene showstopper out of the Cassandra-like Bishop of Carlisle, allowing one to overlook other supporting performances that feel under-par.
You feel throughout a collective crispness of attack and a seriousness of purpose that forestall any sense of the play as some kind of celebrity concoction, and it must be a hoot for Bailey to have followed his onscreen musical theatre prince with this foray into a royal family where there is rather more at stake. You'll admire the intelligence brought to bear on the Bard in the same space whose surpassingly brilliant Midsummer Night's Dream is due soon for an encore engagement. But will you weep for this Richard? As of my recent visit, I'd say no.
