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by William Shakespeare, directed by Nicholas Hytner

Bridge Theatre, London, GBR

February 18-May 10, 2025

Richard II: “For within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits”

Of the six productions of Shakespeare’s Richard II that I’ve seen, only two have got both the story and the title character right. The first was the Stratford Festival production in 1983 starring Brian Bedford and directed by Richard Cotrell. The second was the Royal Shakespeare Company production in 2008 starring Jonathan Slinger and directed by Michael Boyd. I had high hopes for the current production at the Bridge Theatre in London (UK) starring Jonathan Bailey and directed by Nicholas Hytner, who had directed Bailey as Edgar in King Lear in 2017. Unfortunately, Hytner’s attempt to modernize the setting leads to a loss of the main symbolic conflict in the play and to the insufficient characterization of both the protagonist and antagonist.

Richard II is the first play of Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy of history plays. It is followed by the two parts of Henry IV and concludes with Henry V. The crime that echoes through all four of the plays is the deposing of Richard II by Henry Bollingbroke (here spelled “Bullingbrook”, likely to reflect the pronunciation). In the Middle ages kings were viewed as God’s secular representatives or to quote the play, “God’s substitute, / His deputy anointed in His sight”. The question in Richard II is what should be done if a king rules in such a way that he ruins his kingdom. Is it not right that he be deposed? Yet, it is right for a human being to depose God’s representative.

These questions should be clear, but Hytner has made significant changes in the text that muddy the storytelling. The first change is in Act 1, Scene 2, which in the original is a scene between John of Gaunt and the Duchess of Gloucester. Hytner has replaced the Duchess with the Duke of York. This is a mistake since it gets rid of the only link in the play to Thomas of Woodstock, the husband of the Duchess of Gloucester who was killed on the orders of Richard II. The duel that begins the play is a fight between Mowbray, who is accused of the murder and Bullingbrook, who seeks to avenge Woodstock’s death.

Shakespeare expected his audience to know that it is Richard who ordered Woodstock’s murder even though Mowbray is taking full blame. To confuse the only scene that gives the historical background is of no help to anyone. The 2008 RSC production made Richard’s responsibility for Woodstocks’s death prominent by having the ghost of Woodstock present and watching Richard during the duel scene between Mowbray and Bullingbrook.

A worse change in the text is Hytner’s complete omission of Act 3, Scene 4, known as “The Garden Scene” in which Queen Isabella overhears a Gardener, whom she calls Old Adam, compare the necessities of gardening to those of ruling without flatterers: “Superfluous branches / We lop away, that bearing boughs may live. / Had he done so, himself had borne the crown”. The Queen says that the Gardener speaks of Richard’s fall as of “a second fall of cursèd man”. This phrase amplifies John of Gaunt’s earlier reference to England as “This other Eden, demi-paradise”. Thus, the Garden Scene is vital in placing the historical incident of Richard’s deposition within a symbolic context in which Richard becomes a second Adam.

The worst sign of Hytner’s vanity is his altering of Richard’s dying lines. In the original they are: “Mount, mount, my soul. Thy seat is up on high, / Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die ”. These lines affirm that Richard views himself as innocent. For these lines Hytner has Richard repeat lines he said earlier in the play: “Comes at the last and with a little pin / Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!” Hytner does this because he has Richard die not by the sword but by a hypodermic needle to the neck. It’s bad enough to change the dying lines of any Shakespeare character, but to do so just to fit new stage business is appalling.

This change in Richard’s dying lines along with the other alterations show Hytner’s attempt to disengage the story of the history play from both history and religious symbolism. The problem is that Shakespeare deliberately uses our knowledge of Richard’s place in history and his place as God’s representative on earth to expand the meaning of actions occurring in a specific time and place. With Hytner all we get is family infighting and grasping for power without knowing precisely why or what the implications of that may be.

Luckily, Hyner has mustered a first-rate cast who are able to make the action feel compelling even though we don’t know that what is at stake is not just who rules England but the whole world order. Given the ecstatic curtain call he received it was clear that seeing Jonathan Bailey, star of the series Bridgerton and the movie Wicked, was the main attraction rather than seeing the play itself. Nevertheless, it happens that Bailey is as charismatic on stage as he is on screen and can speak Shakespeare’s verse as if it were second nature.

Hytner has decided that this Richard will not manifest weakness and indecision as do most Richards. Rather, he has Bailey play Richard as both strong-minded and readily changeable. It’s not too hard to see that these two qualities don’t really go together. Bailey has Richard determinedly decide something, then determinedly change his mind and just as determinedly change it back. It is greatly to Bailey’s credit that he is able to make Richard’s fickleness not appear as capricious as it is meant to be. What neither Hytner nor Bailey have considered is making Richard’s fickleness a deliberate tactic of Richard’s in displaying his power, since people will never know how to act in dealing with him.

Bailey is most successful in portraying Richard as he contemplates his deposition and when he finally loses his power. Bailey brings tears into his voice as if Richard is struggling not to let others see him as weak. In the deposition scene when Richard asks Bullingbrook to take the crown from him, Bailey’s Richard emanates such disdain as if he thought of Bullingbrook as a dog and the crown as a bone. Bailey delivers Richard’s soliloquy in prison including the great line “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me” with great sensitivity and makes Richard’s sudden arousal to action against his murderers thrilling. I was glad to see Bailey on stage again (the last time being in 2012), but I was sorry to see he was not encouraged to present a deeper, more unified version of the great character.

As Richard’s main antagonist Henry Bullingbrook, Royce Pierreson is virtually a cipher. In a good production we should see Richard as a monarch who feels his power comes from God versus Bullingbrook as a politician who feels his power comes from the people. Unfortunately, Pierreson does not seem at all like a politician. Pierreson speaks well but he doesn’t portray all the little lies and contradictions that accumulate as the action progresses. If Hytner followed what Bullingbrook says about his rise to power in Henry IV, Part 2, he would have Pierreson show Bullingbrook as an opportunist who takes power because he can. Pierreson gives us no clue as to what Bullingbrook is thinking and seems somehow to sleepwalk into ruling England.

The one actor who provides us with the clearest view of what the play is all about is the ever-dependable Michael Simkins as the Duke of York. Hytner has York be the last character to leave the stage at the play’s end as if Hytner realized how important York is in creating a sense of continuity from Richard’s reign to Bullingbrook’s. Simkins plays York as a vigorous upholder of the law. While Richard is King, Simkins’s York supports him even while noting how Richard wastes the treasury. Yet, when Bullingbrook is King, Simkins’s York strongly supports him. When York discovers that his own son, Aumerle, is plotting against Bullingbrook, York is ready to turn him in. Simkins is so fine an actor that we do not see York’s change of allegiance as comic.

Supporting Simkins as York is Amanda Root as the Duchess of York. Root’s Duchess is as passionate about suing for mercy for Aumerle as Simkins’s Duke is for seeking punishment. Bullingbrook finding the Duke, Duchess and their son all on their knees before him faces a comic, domestic version of the duelling scene that started the play. It is a major indication that everything in Bullingbrook’s reign will be a parody of what was serious in Richard’s.

In other roles Nick Sampson is a fine John of Gaunt. With his resonant voice and sensitivity to Shakespeare’s poetry, his Gaunt seems to embody the very England he speaks of in his beautifully delivered speech about “This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England”. When this Gaunt dies, we do feel a whole reverential view of England dies with him.

In complete contrast is the Earl of Northumberland of Christopher Osikanlu Colquhoun. Throughout he plays Northumberland as the calculating anti-Yorkist politician who often has to ask to modify his harsh views. The severity Colquhoun demonstrates is what we would reasonably expect to inform Pierreson’s Bullingbrook.

Phoenix Di Sebastiani plays Thomas Mowbray as a kind of thug accused of killing Thomas of Woodstock and designer Bob Crowley has oddly costumed him as such even though Mowbray is as much an aristocrat as Bullingbrook. Di Sebastiani shows that Mowbray chafes under the accusation and his inability to speak the truth, i.e. that Richard himself ordered the murder. One of Hytner’s better ideas is to have the Aumerle of Vinnie Heaven appear in as many of the court scenes as possible. Heaven plays Aumerle as outwardly callous but inwardly cowardly. His continued presence shows that although most of the country turns against Richard, an important remnant does not, as Shakespeare makes evident in the two parts of Henry IV.

Those who wish to see Jonathan Bailey play one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters will be happy to see what Bailey does. They will be moved, especially by his portrayal of Richard bereft of his crown. Those, however, who wish to see a compelling, insightful production of the play itself will have to wait until one comes along.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Jonathan Bailey as Richard II; Royce Pierreson as Bullingbrook; Jonathan Bailey as Richard II; Michael Simkins as the Duke of York and Nick Sampson as John of Gaunt. © 2025 Manuel Harlan.

For tickets visit: bridgetheatre.co.uk.