Camden Theatre: Review of Richard III at the Roundhouse by Jamie Welham | a true monster – the archetypal Machiavellian villain

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

The Review - THEATRE by JAMIE WELHAM
Published: 15 May 2008

Jonathan Slinger

Camden | Shakespeare's Richard III | Roundhouse theatre review |

RICHARD III
Roundhouse

WE don’t need to summon up too many painful school memories to recall that Shakespeare usually comes with a moral.
Don’t mistake lust for love, don’t let pride get the better of you, yada yada yada, ad nauseam.
The moral of Shakespeare’s final and most famous history play is as unequivocal as its protagonist’s morality – namely the only thing worse than the anarchy of a prolonged power vacuum, is the tyranny that it creates.
Richard is a true monster – the archetypal Machiavellian villain whose name has become synonymous with treachery, skulduggery and malevolence.
He will do anything – even if it means tallying up a body count of Grand Theft Auto proportions – to get his hands on the crown.
With such expectations, it is easy for the role to haunt actors, much like ghosts haunt the King prior to battle, descending into melodrama and pantomime villainy.
But morphing into the personification of pure evil is all in a day’s work for Jonathan Slinger, who with a sardonic smile, unsettling hobble and blood-spouting birthmark is truly the stuff of nightmares. No small feat given Slinger has been juggling roles as an earlier Richard (the II).
One small Roman numeral and you’ve got a character as different as Hannibal Lecter is from Paul McCartney.
By giving the story a modern dress makeover – complete with camouflage, sub machine guns and helicopters – director Michael Boyd reminds us that history is a cyclical process and despotism lives.
Nowhere is this clearer than when the aptly named Lex Shrapnel, playing a gun-slinging Richmond, hails an end to the blood lust.
The Bard truly is the godfather of irony. He takes it one step further, although he can’t have known it at the time, with the gullible buffoon of the mayor.
The symmetry is too perfect. A play warning of the seductiveness of power that caps off a bloody chapter in England’s history is a fitting end to the RSC’s eight-play residency at the Roundhouse.
May 18 and 25
CNJ Booking line 0870 040 0700

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment:

» A-Z of Theatre
» Local Reviews
» Local Listings
» West End Reviews
» West End Listings
» Theatre Tickets
» Theatre & Hotel Packages