Southwark Playhouse presentsRichard III
by William Shakespeare
September 26th 2007 - October 20th 2007
Show starts: 19:30 (14:00 mats)
Running time: 90 minutes
In just 90 minutes an exceptional cast brilliantly realises Shakespeare’s portrayal of a hunch-backed charismatic who devours all between him and the crown.
Puppets, percussion, and vaulting dark arches all reinforce a visceral, fast paced production.
"Daniel Goldman has done a fine job of creating an uncomfortable, essential experience."
5 Stars, Time Out Critics' Choice on '4.48 Psychosis'
"O’Briain . . . directs with an inspired touch."
Irish Times on 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
"Tom Wilson’s annual Shakespeare production at Southwark Playhouse is a credit to the most theatrical of boroughs. Children from 22 state schools, most of them primaries, will see this show for free - a beautiful statistic in anyone’s agenda."
Time Out on last year's 'Macbeth'
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Creative Team
Directed by |
- Daniel Goldman & Donnacadh O'Briain |
Cast
- Jotham Annan |
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- Tom Armstrong |
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- Alex Britton |
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- Aicha Kossoko |
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- John Lightbody |
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- Valerie O'Connor |
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- Clara Onyemere |
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- Leon Scott |
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- Sion Tudor Owen |
Supported by
The Topinambour Trust |
St Olave's & St Saviour's Schools Foundation |
Reviews
Many of Shakespeare's plays work well in a chamber setting, and a small scale certainly serves Tangram Theatre well with its 90-minute version of Richard III . In the atmospheric vaults under London Bridge station - the new temporary location for Southwark Playhouse - the company performs the play in traverse, with the audience seated either side of a narrow wooden stage. And the directors Daniel Goldman and Donnacadh O'Briain give us a simple, fast and urgent staging that is strong on narrative drive, if not on nuance.
A small cast revolves roles and deploys tiny puppets to illustrate the gruesome effects of Richard's tactics. Puppet death follows upon puppet death. This is particularly effective in suggesting the vulnerability of the young princes and also emphasises the degree to which Richard manipulates the other characters to his will. Use of percussion adds to the sense of urgency. It's Richard's phenomenal energy that comes across here and John Lightbody emphasises the villain's glee at the prospect of a world that he can "bustle" in.
Lightbody's Richard simply has more drive than anyone else around: a vigour that, were it not corroded by jealousy and resentment, would be attractive. He's quite a large Richard, and as he limps at great speed up and down the wooden stage, his dynamic presence sweeps all before him. He has a mischievous twinkle as he taunts the audience with his plans. All this is good, but he could use much greater variety of tone: something more icily quiet when denying Buckingham his due, for instance.
This is a weakness in the production. Its speed means it is too much at one pitch, so we lose emotional subtleties and even lines of text. An exception to this is Jotham Annan, admirably lucid and still as both Buckingham and Richmond. There is fine work, too, from Valerie O'Connor as Anne and Clara Onyemere as Elizabeth. And Aicha Kossoko handles well the difficult role of mad Queen Margaret.
The production aims to be accessible to all audiences over the age of 10. I took two junior critics: the 11-year-old struggled; the 13-year-old loved it. Younger audiences would need help with the plot and language beforehand.
Sarah Hemming - Financial Times (3 Stars) Read Full Review
There are moments in this brisk, abbreviated production when you could almost believe that you’re watching ‘Macbeth’ rather than ‘Richard III’. There are obvious thematic links between the works anyway (political ambition, assassinations, haunted consciences), but directors Daniel Goldman and Donnacadh O’Briain have incorporated so many clichés of stagings of the Scottish Play – military uniforms, an ambience of half-day/half-night gloom, supernatural-seeming shards of sound, incantatory chants and whispers – that you begin to wonder in places whether they haven’t also conflated the texts.
The production’s chief attraction is John Lightbody’s Richard, a gently camp stage villain with an extended, hiccuping Max Wall-style gait and a gloved left hand pinned to his breast. Lightbody speaks the verse very well
(a compliment that unfortunately cannot be extended to all members of the cast). And Darren East’s puppets are fun, too – if your idea of fun is watching little wooden figures being asphyxiated and having their heads twisted off. Basically, the puppets are used to represent Richard’s victims in extremis – a picturesque and diverting, if not particularly illuminating, staging device.
The text cuts mean the play proceeds at a nice clip and ends early – both good things. But it’s a strategy with significant deficits, too: most characters, excepting the titular one, are reduced to ciphers and with all the doubling it’s sometimes hard to work out who’s supposed to be who.
Robert Shore - Time Out (3 Stars) Read Full Review
The sound of trains rumbling above Southwark Playhouse’s new London Bridge venue adds something rather sinister to Tangram Theatre’s production of Richard III.
Like rolls of thunder, the noise seems to fit nicely with the play’s dark events and complements the production’s own percussion-based score, composed by Alex Silverman.
With the audience seated on each side of what is best described as a catwalk, the show’s cast of ten each take on a number of the production’s 17 characters. Although the play starts a little slowly, and some of the pace seems to remain on one level for a lot of the production, it eventually picks up energy, but it only really grips the audience in the final few scenes.
Jotham Annan gives a fine performance in the roles of Buckinghamshire and Richmond, while Aicha Kossoko brings welcome energy and presence to the stage in her portrayal of Margaret. However it is John Lightbody as Richard who steals the show, finding humour in the text and lumbering around the stage as in an often camp manner, becoming suitably more manic as he sets about showing Richard’s determination to become king.
The show’s use of puppets provides a welcome change of pace and a nice visual touch, and Silverman’s score helps build tension in all the right places. Sadly, the narrow catwalk staging feels visually disappointing and doesn’t allow for any depth in the staging. The end result is that the production feels longer than its 90 minutes.
Matthew Hemley - The Stage Read Full Review
I am deeply grateful to Daniel Goldman and Donnacadh O’Briain for cutting down this play to 95 minutes: at full length their production would have been intolerable. It’s not quite as bad as a school play, but it’s reaching out to university standards in vain. The cuts are perverse.
Richard’s dialogue with Queen Elizabeth goes on interminably, but the famous opening speech is barbarously mutilated. John Lightbody’s Richard is a big, angry bruiser, as humourless as a BNP spokesman: the idea that this roaring lout can charm a grieving widow is laughable. “Is the chair empty?” he roars, standing beside his empty throne.
This is a noisy production. Everyone’s shouting; but when they lower their voices they are, in this small space, almost inaudible. Lady Anne and Lord Rivers have limpid Dublin accents. For murders and executions, little white floppy dolls are used, which in this rough setting looks only pretentious but oh, the pity of it, Iago. You can tell that these are serious, talented actors. How must they feel? I wish them a short run.
John Peter - The Sunday Times Read Full Review