First night review: 壊れやすい, yes, but perhaps not regal enough for a Richard

By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail
Updated:


Richard II by William Shakespeare (D onmar 倉庫／問屋)

率ing: 3 Star Rating

Pretty: Eddie Redmayne as Richard II

Pretty: Eddie Redmayne as Richard II

Eddie Reynolds Redmayne is one of our prettiest male actors.

I daresay he attracts wolf whistles from building 場所／位置s.

In some ways this makes him a natural to play Richard II, who is often portrayed as a fey violet.

Mr Redmayne certainly brings 詳細（に述べる）d fragility to the 欠陥d, soon-to-be-倒れるd king.

He twitches, blushes, blinks 繰り返して at 速度(を上げる） and 一般に carries himself in an unregal, 疑問ing way.

What we 欠如（する）, however, is a sense of Richard ever having been remotely impressive as 君主.

This is a history play without much sense of the 戦争の clout of the 王室の 法廷，裁判所.

It all feels as though it is 存在 制定するd in the sort of controlled, 窒息させるing 要約する／（宇宙ロケットの）カプセル in which BBC Television filmed I Claudius a 世代 ago.

Mr Redmayne certainly 配達するs an 利益／興味ing 業績／成果. This Richard is not as tyrannical as some. He has the sort of mouth which opens and shuts a couple of times before passing judgment.

When he gives up the 王位 to Henry Bolingbroke (Andrew Buchan, rather good) he succumbs to little more than petulance. With a really 最高の，を越す-notch Richard we surely pity him a little by the end.

That didn’t happen for me in this 生産／産物.?

Maybe Mr Redmayne is 簡単に too good-looking to play a character this problematic.

The show is 著名な because? it 示すs the end of Michael Grandage’s 罰金, ten-year （一定の）期間 running the Donmar.


?'Trademark elegance'

Mr Grandage gives us his trademark? elegance: （死傷者）数ing bells, a classical 始める，決める which 会社にする／組み込むs a gilted 木造の gallery, and a steadiness of rhythm to the 詩（を作る）-speaking and the movement.

When we finally see ‘plume-pluck’d’ Richard in his 刑務所，拘置所 独房, Mr Redmayne stands half in the 影をつくる／尾行するs beside some smoky, grey light. Good moment.

Some of the support 事実上の／代理 is workmanlike rather than brilliant.

Michael Hadley’s John of Gaunt hops around like a sandpiper during his supposed deathbed speech about ‘this sceptered 小島’.

Daniel Flynn’s Northumberland, far from 存在 a silken schemer, is more of a nightclub bouncer. によれば the programme, Ron Cook plays the Duke of York but from his hairdo I 最初 推定するd it was Noel Edmond s.

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