Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Jessamy James
An all-female version of one of Shakespeare’s finest plays would suggest that some of the characters will be gender-swapped and that the play will have a changed focus. However, Whole Pack Theatre seek to give meaty roles to female actors that, until recently, they would not have been allowed to perform. With Richard II almost devoid of female characters, and none of them named, the company plays the male characters as men, and this works just fine.
Editing this play full of “inky blots” into 60 minutes is a brave choice, especially as most of the characters are retained. Among the five actors, only Jessamy James, who also directs, playing Richard, doesn’t multi-role. In a paper crown, James cuts a formidable, and importantly, human monarch. He rails against his fate and then meekly accepts it, lost without a title or name.
It takes a while to understand the meaning of the bright coloured scarves that the other actors rearrange around themselves, sometimes like a belt, at other times like a sash. But once grasped, it’s a neat way to show how the actors are adopting other figures in the endless scheming against their king.
Lydia Shaw plays Bolingbroke with the petulance and arrogance of youth, and in a surprising twist, appears in Richard’s prison cell, bringing a neat symmetry to the rivalry that has undone England. The “Sceptred Isle’ speech is fiercely delivered by Kira Morsley’s Gaunt on his deathbed, raging against the light. While Meghan Louise Taylor has fun – perhaps too much fun? – in her series of roles. Catriona Trainer is the decent Duke of Aumerie.
Singing lovely, harmonised songs, between scenes, the five actors do well to create a sense of location in the small performance space of the Libra Theatre Café. The sheet that once covered the dead Gaunt becomes the sea as Richard sails to England, a paper boat rising on top of it. The stagecraft is endearing, and there could be more of it.
With the play so abridged, it does make sense to re-familiarise yourself with the story before the show begins. But despite the cuts, this Richard II is measured and sensitive. There’s nothing hollow about this at all.
Runs until 21 August 2025
Camden Fringe runs until 24 August 2025
