The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Of all Shakespeare’s plays there can be few so risky to stage in an ecclesiastical setting as Richard II, his clash-of-loyalties history that pits the rights of a divinely ordained but dissolute monarch against those of a wronged but opportunistic usurper. Inspired by the king’s self-comparison, there is a tendency among directors to over-emphasise Richard’s Christ-like qualities to the detriment of the human tragedy at the heart of the play.

With the grandeur of Hampstead Parish Church as their stage, this pitfall was a particular risk for the Hampstead Players, so it is much to their credit – and that of directors John Willmer and Bill Risebero – that they avoided belaboring the religious dimension and instead gave us a production that blended intensely personal emotion with political dilemma to provide a compelling evening’s entertainment.

The decision to open the performance by depicting the murder of the Duke of Gloucester – an event that catalyzes the whole play but which Shakespeare, confident in his Elizabethan audience’s familiarity with the ins and outs of Plantagenet family feuding, neglected to dramatize – was a bold and effective choice. Underscored by Andrew Hurrell’s moody score and juxtaposed with the opening scene in Richard’s opulent court, this prelude effectively highlighted a darkness beneath the glittering surface that was mirrored in Matthew Williams’s performance as the king.

Visibly bored with the posturing and politicking of his militaristic nobles, Williams patronized and condescended his way through the early scenes with a sly half-smile that suggested kingship was a private joke that only he was in on. This was a king so manifestly unsuited to rule that one of the biggest questions the audience took out at the interval was how on earth it had taken his cousin so long to get round to deposing him.

As the wronged Bolingbroke, Adrian Hughes gave us a study of a practical, steely, no-nonsense soldier, completely out of step with Richard’s arbitrary rule. When told that his decade-long banishment was being reduced, just moments after it was imposed, Hughes’s response that ‘four lagging winters and four wanton springs end in a word’ seemed less a ‘thank you’ than an unspoken plea for the king to just make up his blooming mind.

A fiery confrontation with the dying John of Gaunt (a beautifully spoken performance from Bill Fry) showed the iron fist beneath Richard’s velvet glove, however, and displayed the king’s darker, more vindictive side, finally compelling previously loyal nobles into a conspiracy against him, ably led by Sean Spurvey as a flinty Earl of Northumberland.

As the story gathered pace, Richard’s return from his Irish wars was greeted with general rebellion, David Gardner’s well-meaning but indecisive Duke of York proving no match for the wily, determined Bolingbroke. Falling back on the support of his divine right and silver tongue, Williams demonstrated an exceptional command of verse-speaking in Richard’s deposition scenes, but he was never better than in a heartbreaking leave-taking scene with Queen Isabel, Mary Clare’s varied and nuanced performance being one of the best I have seen in the role.

I am rarely impressed by the York family’s comedy antics in Act V, but Moragh Gee and Ian Howarth attacked the scenes with brio. In support, as the Yorks’ hapless servant, Harlequin deserves special mention for injecting a delightful touch of slapstick humour (along with one of many contrasting hairstyles).

In the end, though, all productions of Shakespeare histories stand or fall with their lead actors. And while I would have perhaps included a little more of Richard’s prison cell soliloquy, in his final end – arms spread on the chancel steps like the martyr Richard believed himself to be – Williams made this most unsympathetic of kings a most sympathetic man: an achievement to crown a powerful performance and a genuinely impressive production.