The BBC Television Shakespeare (TV Series) Richard II (1978) User Reviews

a superior version of a neglected history play

[didi-5 · 9/10 · 25 July 2007]

BBC Shakespeare's history cycle ran right the way from this play, 'Richard II', through to 'Richard III', by way of Henries IV, V, and VI.

A neglected play, entirely in verse, and often thought superficial and unlikely to stand up to study (rarely taught in schools, for example), 'Richard II' is nevertheless one of Shakespeare's most engrossing and beautiful plays. It has passages of text that have gone down into theatre legend, not least John O'Gaunt's 'Methinks I am a prophet new inspired'.

In casting this production surpassed itself. Derek Jacobi brings Richard a soul and a spirit, whether he is playing him as vain and selfish in the early scenes, or broken and discouraged post-deposition. It is a tricky role which he performs extremely well. Opposing him as the future Henry IV is Jon Finch, who also left us a memorable film Macbeth a few years earlier, an actor of considerable range who seems to have worked little in recent years. Here he is a perfect foil to the spoilt Richard.

In support, John Gielgud gives a mighty performance as Gaunt, while the likes of Charles Gray, Wendy Hiller, and Mary Morris, bring life to other, more minor roles. The sets are not expensive or, backdrops at least, that convincing, but the play and text is strong enough for that not to matter.

A highly recommended version of a play rarely filmed or performed, and a good scene setter for the rest of the History Plays.

Jacobi breathes life into the character

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 17 July 2006]

For those who love Shakespeare's haunting poetry and the great acting of Derek Jacobi and John Gielgud, the BBC performance of 1978 of Richard II is highly recommended. The production, now available on DVD with optional subtitles, features Jacobi as King Richard and Gielgud as John of Gaunt. Like King John and Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard II is written in verse and is perhaps best known for the patriotic speech magnificently delivered by John of Gaunt (Gielgud) prior to his death, a speech that repeats the word "this" 17 times, "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden", and so forth. Although Jacobi was about ten years older than the 31-year old monarch, he breathes life into the character of Richard, both as a proud and often despotic king and later as a contrite poet-philosopher and royal martyr. Appearing aloof with his high collar, he nonetheless never relinquishes his dignity, though, in this production, his light apparel makes him look weak compared to the darkly clad Bolingbroke (Jon Finch).

The play is the first of four histories involving the rise of Harry Bolingbroke into King Henry IV (parts I & II) and then his son, Prince Hal, into Henry V. Unfortunately it is noted more for its role in the Essex Rebellion than for its dramatic merits, which are considerable. For those unfamiliar with the Essex affair, In 1601, the Earl of Essex, on the eve of an attempted coup against Queen Elizabeth and/or Robert Cecil, is alleged to have sponsored a performance of Richard II by the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the Globe Theater, a play whose theme is the usurpation of legitimate royal power. The next day he led a band of 300 followers into London shouting "Murder, murder, God Save the Queen". The populace failed to rally behind him and he was tried and executed for treason. While it remains uncertain as to whether or not the evidence against Essex relating to the play was manufactured, it was used against him successfully by the prosecution during the trial.

On first glance, it is hard to see why the performance of the play should have carried so much weight. Though Richard II dramatizes the deposition of a sitting monarch, (Richard II by Henry Bolingbroke a.k.a. Henry IV), it does not take a stand on the merits of the issue of divine right versus deposition and, arguably, presents Richard as a more sympathetic, even heroic figure than the calculating Bolingbroke. On the other hand, in a conversation with the keeper of the Tower records, Elizabeth is known to have said, "I am Richard II, know ye not that?" The uncertainty about succession and the existence of factions supporting alternative candidates made her uneasy about its subject matter and the abdication scene was absent in all editions published during her lifetime To fully understand the play requires some knowledge of the historical events leading up to the start of the work. Richard II of the York line of kings acceded to the throne when he was only ten years old and reigned from 1377 to 1399. Though he was under the protection of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a power struggle ensued to control the young monarch that left a lifelong impression on the young king. Included in the group of nobles that became known as the Lords Apellant, were Gaunt's brother Thomas Woodstock, the Earl of Gloucester, Lancaster's son, Henry Bolingbroke, the Duke of Hereford, and Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk.

As Richard reached adulthood he turned to his inner circle for support, including his favorite, the disreputable Robert De Vere, the 9th Earl of Oxford (curiously not mentioned in either Woodstock or Richard II) and isolated the established nobles even though he had just concluded a settlement with them. Woodstock was imprisoned and mysteriously murdered, the first Lancastrian casualty in the Wars of the Roses. Both Bolingbroke and Mowbray, concerned that they were next in line for the gallows, turned against each other, Bolingbroke accusing Mowbray of the murder of Woodstock and Mowbray accusing Bolingroke of slander.

Shakespeare's play begins with both men stating their case in the presence of King Richard. After both sides have their say, Richard calls for Bolingbroke and Mowbray (Richard Owens) to resolve their differences in a duel. After the ceremony commences, however, Richard suddenly cancels the event and banishes Mowbray for life and Bolingbroke for ten years, a sentence that was reduced to six years. Meanwhile Richard wages war in Ireland to counter the threat of Owen Glendower. To support his Irish campaign, after the death of John of Gaunt, he appropriates all of his rightful land and property.

Supported by Northumberland (Charles Gray), Bolingbroke, in exile, gathers an army to reclaim his inheritance and Richard goes to meet him. He believes God is on his side, yet, lacking popular support because of his heavy taxation, he acquiesces meekly after contemplating the consequences of prolonged bloodshed, and escorts Bolingbroke to London. After Richard's adversaries accuse him of high crimes, he signs a confession and yields the throne. Henry orders him confined to the Tower of London, then announces his own coronation as Henry IV. Though King Richard's abdication actually took place before only a handful of Lords in the Tower, Shakespeare embellishes it by adding imaginary soliloquies full of lyrical Hamlet-like reflection.

Though nominally a history play, Richard II is more about character than history and could easily be considered a tragedy. Richard is no doubt a flawed, even perhaps psychologically disturbed character, yet his final speeches reveal his growing self-awareness and leave the audience wondering if the War of the Roses could have been prevented if he had remained in power.

Excellent, but for the hole in the center

[tonstant viewer · 7/10 · 5 August 2006]

Richard II is the setup for the cycle of history plays, and as such devotes much time to explication. So it can be a little dry compared with some other Shakespeare, and so it is here.

The cast is almost uniformly excellent. Jon Finch is a sturdy Bolingbroke, and Sir John Gielgud is memorable, speaking John of Gaunt's "This England" speech as if no one had ever spoken it before.

Charles Gray, usually a "damn-the-torpedos" scene stealer, here defers magnificently to Dame Wendy Hiller. When the two plead on their knees simultaneously for and against a royal pardon of their son, they teeter sublimely on the razor's edge of urgent melodrama and marital farce - an exquisite and very difficult moment.

The problem for me is a very intelligent, much praised performer who fails in the title role. Derek Jacobi often makes wise choices as he prepares and analyzes the text. Then he commits the actor's unpardonable sin of monitoring his own performance while delivering it. He winds up admiring his own work while doing it, which in serious drama is disgusting.

It is also a truism among actors that either the actor cries or the audience cries, but never both. Unfortunately Mr. Jacobi cries so much there's no reason for us to join in; he sheds enough tears for all of us, and we just sit and stare.

The other odd thing about Mr. Jacobi's delivery is his total lack of velocity. It doesn't matter whether he speaks quickly or slowly, loudly or softly, there's no movement, no snap, no impetus, no forward motion. Everything emerges from a thick, suet-y, pudding-like stillness, and he never actually manages to get from point A to point B - compare with Gielgud's performance in the same play, where the older man has lost his long breath, but manages to gallop nonetheless.

The BBC videos of Shakespeare's comedies and romances have much more engaging production design than the histories, but what we see here is perfectly adequate, if not arresting.

The all-important pacing is uneven, except for the scene of the handing over of the crown, which grinds to a dead halt. This last should have been tightened in the editing. Overall, tedium is not avoided, it's embraced.

So if you really think that Derek Jacobi is a great Shakespearian actor, don't mind me, just plunge right in without hesitation.

I personally would rather get my hands on a copy of the Shakespeare Recording Society version from the 1960's, starring Sir John Gielgud as Richard II with Michael Hordern, Leo McKern and Keith Michell; this is available on audio cassette in the UK and on CD nowhere, and that's a scandal HarperCollins should address.

Awesome performance by Jacobi of this great play

[rosian · 10/10 · 16 January 2008]

This has been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays ever since I studied it at school so it's a joy to own at last the Beeb's Shakespeare Collection on DVD.

Through that school study I've always felt an interest in this king and some sympathy for his dilemmas. A king with such flaws and yet such cunning is so much more interesting beside any tough warrior king who goes about fighting aka his more famous and in the past revered namesake Richard I. And surely we can all feel for his love for his wife, and her despair as he is forced in tears to send her away to safety outside England. So it was a joy to see this amazing performance by Jacobi, confirming all my memories of this play as one of the best of Shakespeare. Whilst Jacobi dominated as the electrifying personality Richard, the rest of the cast are also so very good. Being sympathetic to Richard (as I feel Shakespeare was), I always loathed unartistic Bolingbroke and this actor's excellent performance in this version was very satisfyingly hate-able! I am looking forward to seeing how the Beeb deal with his reign as King when he discovers that being King isn't as easy as he'd thought. I could also happily despise York for the chancer he was, keeping on the winning side, so excellently portrayed by Charles Gray in a performance equalling Jacobi's in quality. My one very slight disappointment was in Gielgud's great patriotic speech, This England. We all had to learn this by heart at school as part of the study, and it's still my most favourite Shakespeare speech. It's not easy for any actor, however amazing, to do it just as I want to hear it. So I don't blame Gielgud at all for not grabbing me with his version, how could I blame such a great actor! I just wanted it done a little differently to satisfy my own ideas of how it should be.

I noted when reading up the other comments, a remark that some people had criticised the Beeb's sometimes stark settings. But Shakespeare's plays were performed on a virtually bare stage! The Beeb's versions are positively crammed with scenery and atmosphere which Shakespeare's actors had to create just by their personalities and performance. I didn't see anything stark in the settings in this play. It's a tragedy. You don't expect it to be in a jolly sunlit field!

magnificent!

[pae-sk · 2 August 2003]

Richard II is Shakespeare's first great tragedy, for here he realizes that character is destiny, and no English King was so brought to ruin because of his flawed character than the weak and stupid Richard II, son of Edward the Black Prince and grandson of Edward III.

Jacobi's performance gets to the very root of Richard's personality: his arrogance, poor judgment, false bravado, impulsiveness - and in the end, his elegiac suffering as he collapses in tears, shorn of his crown and titles. "I cannot see," he wails when signing his abdication papers. "My eyes are too full of tears!" And was there ever a line in literature more heartbreaking than this: "I wasted time and now doth time waste me." A brilliant performance from start to gut-wrenching finish. Shakespeare has never been done better. The entire cast is marvelous.

I hear too many complaints that BBC productions have poorly designed sets and costumes. Puh-leeeze! Shakespeare is all about the WORDS. If you want impressive spectacle, go rent one of Cecil B. DeMille's adaptations of the Little Golden Book of Bible Stories. BBC gives us truly GREAT actors reciting Shakespeare, uncut, unedited, and unexpurgated.

Richard II was the first play in a cycle of eight plays that cover British history from 1377 to 1485 and chronicles the rise and fall of the high-hearted, ill-starred Plantagenets. Richard II is followed by Henry IV, Parts I and II; Henry V; Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III; and concluding the cycle, Richard III. This was part of a project by BBC to televise ALL of Shakespeare's plays for television. I don't know if they ever finished the series, but what they did complete was excellent, play after play.

If American PBS stations really want to raise money for their support, stop with the stupid pledge drives and auctions! Get all these great performances on VHS and DVD and sell them to a public ravenously hungry for good and intelligent entertainment.

A Most Trying Nephew

[bkoganbing · 10/10 · 10 February 2013]

Shakespeare for the masses does not get any better than Derek Jacobi and his interpretation of Richard II. Jacobi must have felt a bit of pressure as in the cast was John Gielgud playing John Of Gaunt who was acclaimed back in his salad days for playing Richard II at the Old Vic.

Richard II got to be king at the age of 8 after the deaths of his father Edward the Black Prince of Wales in 1376 and his grandfather Edward III in 1377. When he was 12 the child king was trotted out by his governors to face down the peasant revolt. If being king didn't convince him he was something special than the reverence shown the royal child king by his subjects on that occasion must have.

During his childhood like the later Edward VI it was a continual struggle for power by his uncles and as Edward III had several sons you can only imagine what it was like. In 1389 Richard came into his own and ruled more than most by royal whim. Very few ever told this kid no.

By the time of 1398 when the action of this play unfolds there are two surviving uncles John Of Gaunt the Duke of Lancaster and Edmund of York played here by Charles Gray. There is also a surviving Duchess of Gloucester in one scene and played with great intensity by Mary Morris whose husband died under unexplained circumstances and she wants answers. She suspects her nephew the king had a hand in it and she wants Gielgud to do something about it. Note the names of Lancaster and York, in Gray and Gielgud you see the founders of the warring houses in the Wars Of The Roses in the 15th century.

John of Gaunt had a great respect and reverence for the royal person and institution. If he had not, he would have usurped the throne of his most trying nephew. However he had a son who had less scruples Henry Of Bolingbroke played by Jon Finch. Bolingbroke after a quarrel with the Duke Of Norfolk where they agree to a combat of arms has Richard II break it up and exile both of them. Bolingbroke agrees to go.

But he's back with a vengeance when his father dies and Richard II decides to usurp the Lancastrian fortune which is considerable to pay for an Irish expedition. That gets a lot of nobility's attention with them figuring that if he can do it to his Lancaster cousin he could do it to any one of them.

And they decide that they've had enough of a spoiled narcissistic brat on the throne. This is where Jacobi is at his best. He saunters through the play with an air of supreme indifference and up to the end cannot believe his loyal nobles are siding against him.

Way back in high school I remember English class where in discussing Hamlet the mercurial Hamlet is compared to the little seen Fortinbras who has strength and purpose in his makeup. Hamlet was a guy who did things on a whim like Richard II. The character of Jacobi is in counterpoint with that of Finch as Bolingbroke who the nobles see as a guy they can rely on not to go off half-cocked in his governance. And Jacobi also did an acclaimed Hamlet which I would dearly love to see.

The BBC did a tremendous service with their Shakespeare plays. All of them are so well staged and acted and I hope they all become available on DVD. This was one of the best of them with Derek Jacobi's Richard II as a career role for him right along side I Claudius.

Memory did not deceive

[Figtree · 10/10 · 6 June 2004]

I saw this on TV when it was originally broadcast back in 1978. All of these years I've remembered Derek Jacobi's performance. I just saw the DVD version, and he is just as brilliant as I remembered. There are nuances to the performance that I didn't notice when I first saw it at a lot younger age. Several of the BBC productions of Shakespeare plays were excellent; this is one of the very best.

I also enjoyed Charles Gray and Wendy Hiller as the Duke and Duchess of York. They are almost comic characters in some ways, yet not quite. Both actors do very well in their roles.

Shakespeare plays are so timeless that this doesn't seem dated at all. I'm very glad that I saw King Richard II again.

Brilliantly taut political drama

[alainenglish · 9/10 · 20 August 2007]

Coming early in the BBC's run of Shakespeare's plays, and kicking off his eight-play History Cycle that ends with "Richard III", "Richard II" is one of the best that I have seen so far in this series.

I have previously trashed Derek Jacobi's performance as Hamlet elsewhere on this site, but that had more to do with my dislike of the over-rated character he was playing. As an actor, Jacobi is usually superlative, especially with Shakespeare, and he outdoes himself here in the title role.

Richard II is widely assumed to be the 'weak king' of Shakespeare's monarchs, owing to his lyricism, and the fact that he is easily deposed by Bolingbroke (here played by Jon Finch). But I think that this assumption owes more to the plot than the actual character. In reality, Richard was a cunning ruler who was kicked off the throne not once but twice.

In Jacobi's interpretation we get a man is arrogant, unwise and self-indulgent, prone to tears and self-pity, but who is definitely NOT a weak man. Note how he draws out his abdication from the throne, sowing the seeds of guilt in his usurper by thoroughly embarrassing him. Not to mention the way he fights off the guards near the end and dies nobly. Jacobi catches all these moments well and truly lives the character.

He is well-supported by Sir John Gielgud as John of Gaunt and Charles Gray as York along with a host of other competent Shakespearean performers. The result, though well over two hours long, is a highly compelling piece of Shakespeare.

Starts to drag

[clivey6 · 7/10 · 18 May 2010]

This is great to watch with the subtitles, and it's generally quite comprehensible, whereas reading the Aarden Shakespeare meant I had to consult the notes to figure out what the characters meant.

That said, there's more than a touch of camp about Derek Jacobi's titular king, to the point where I wondered if he had a bit of the Edward II about him. Jacobi's effete manner reminded me of another, even earlier king, King John, as played by Claude Rains in The Adventures of Robin Hood. All very good up to a point, but it began to lack a certain range for me. As his self-pitying histrionics rose to a pitch near the end, I began to think of Richard Dreyfus in the 1990s sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme, and how he might expostulate over some handsome hunk he'd had within his grasp, only to let slip through his fingers like slimy spaghetti in cold water - while an unimpressed, gum-chewing Kathy Burke watches on.

It's 2 hrs 40 minutes, btw. Look out for a great supporting cast including Clive Swift (Keeping Up Appearances, Excalibur) among the more obvious names.

Wonderful, hard to think of what is wrong with it

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 30 August 2012]

I have loved Shakespeare since reading Twelfth Night in my sixth year at primary school. And I admire most of the actors here, most notably Derek Jacobi and John Gielgud. This performance of Richard II is just wonderful. The production values are very good if not as good as the dialogue and performances. The sets do convince you of the time and place at least, and the costumes do have a sense of regality to them. Shakespeare's dialogue is brilliant, both poetic and forceful.

And the story of loyalty and betrayal as well as rebellion and politics is always compelling and delivered and staged with utter conviction. All the performances are superb, delivering their lines gracefully and intelligently with a good deal of intensity when needed. In particular Derek Jacobi, his performance is a masterclass in abject humiliation that later replaces Richard's kingly pride complete with a regal demeanour and a sense of human thought. Jon Finch is a handsome yet appropriately dark and brooding Bolingbroke and Charles Gray and Wendy Hiller give equally adept performances, but it was John Gielgud that gave the best supporting performance, his This is England...speech is chillingly moving in how elegiac the dialogue and delivery was.

Overall, the brilliant performances especially were what made this Richard II so great. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Isolation corrupts power

[Dr_Coulardeau · 9/10 · 17 November 2016]

This is a great play with the full music of Shakespearean language, including the music, loud indeed, of historical semantics. But let me BE more to the point.

We have here the story of King Richard II, the son of the Black Prince, born in Bordeaux. In the play he starts with grandeur and grandiose pompousness and that is emphasized by costumes that are heavy and huge. Confronted with Bolingbroke's accusations against Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, and vice versa in some reciprocal verbal vendetta. They agree on an ordeal, in fact a fight to the death like some feudal tournament, the winner is innocent, the other is dead. The king then appears reasonable, and yet he stops the fight just before it starts and banishes the two young men. Mowbray for life and his cousin Bolingbroke for ten years, reduced to six on the appeal from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the father of Bolingbroke. Strangely enough the King has two uncles, Edmund of Langley, duke of York, and John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, but no father of course since he died on 1376.

Then the king decides to go to Ireland for some expedition, military tourism of the time. On his way he visits John of Gaunt who is dying and dies in front of him and the king reveals his real nature. We know he is slightly tyrannical, definitely nepotistic and extremely vain in his anti-feudal stance against a fight to deliver justice. But after the death of his uncle John of Gaunt he announces that he will seize the whole assets of the man, castle, money, land, along with the chattel (including the serfs of course). He thus dispossesses his cousin who is not present since he has been banished. The king appears there as someone who should retire from power, but in feudal times that was not the normal procedure, and in fact no one could or should even hint at questioning the authority of the King: that was treason and nothing else, a treason totally enforced by the authority of the church, and that is one stake of this play. The king leaves his other uncle Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, as the regent during his absence. We can see the rivalry between the two houses of York and Lancaster, the famous two roses, getting in place and Richard II is vastly responsible for what was going to happen.

Back from Ireland he finds himself in front of a rebellion led by Bolingbroke, the duke of Lancaster, who has come back from exile with no permission and who, though dispossessed, has managed to get the nobles on his side and the king has to resign, or abdicate. Shakespeare insists on this abdication and the subsequent coronation, imprisonment and final assassination. It is important to know that such a procedure is not possible: that's why the church is reluctant and the play insists on the fact that he is not dismissed, but he voluntarily abdicates in favor of his cousin Henry. But in the mean time the son of the Duke of York, the duke of Aumerle has been convicted of treason and condemned to death. He is part of some plot involving the church. His mother and father go plead with the king, the new king, Henry IV who yields on this Duke of Aumerle but on none of the other plotters. At this moment we can see the war of the Roses behind, looming up slowly since the King is now a Lancaster and the plotters are around as well as inside the house of York. The pardon to the son will leave the house of York with a direct heir and that pardon was probably a mistake from the Lancaster the king is, but history is full of mistakes.

This play has very lyrical moments that are creative reflections on power, the isolation of power, the sadness of power and yet the responsibility of power. Richard II thinks he is power by essence and thus his abdication should physically destroy him, which is not the case. At the same time the rivalry between the two houses is coming up slowly but it is inflamed by the zeal of some courtiers. In this case the assassination of Richard is a direct provocation against the house of York, and at the same time the pardon to the Duke of Aumerle is an act of weakness that does not improve anything.

In spite of the dramatic events, and the tragic though slightly melodramatic end, of this play the historical reflection it contains is probably not that clear, not that fully constructed. I mean it is contradictory. The characters are not always conscious they have to accept power and do what the situation requires. Richard II becomes dictatorial with age, which is abuse of power, though he is rather young when he falls, and Henry IV is rather hesitant and lacks determination at the end of the play, at the beginning of his reign, and Shakespeare shows how the clergy and some nobles are plotting in the wings, behind the back of the king. In feudal times a king could only grant his own abdication and he would do this only if ge felt there was a full alliance of the nobles and the church against him: that's at least what happened with Magna Carta.

That's Shakespeare's conception of politics: it is always fishing in dark water, maneuvering with no visibility, speculating with no specular mirror or magnifying glass, hence seeing nothing, neither any reflection nor any enlarged picture. This history though does not have any comical scene or character, apart from the scene in some bathing and massaging hall or cellar, the king is having some fun with his "creatures Bushy, Bagot and Green. [...]

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Jacobi shines as Richard the "sun-king"

[frostl · 30 October 2000]

Richard II is one of those plays that hangs almost wholly on the performance of the leading actor. While the action centers on the deposition of a king, the play is not so much a political drama as a psychological one. Shakespeare's interest, and therefore ours, is focused primarily on "unking'd Richard" rather than on his conflict with Henry Bolingbroke, the "silent king." Fortunately, the BBC version gives us a central performance that does the play justice: Derek Jacobi (one of my favorite actors anyway) does a turn here that's nothing short of splendid. Most of Richard's longer speeches have a nearly operatic quality to them, and Jacobi's reading does not disappoint. It's a great portrait of a petulant young king who gains -- if not true wisdom, then magnificent pathos.

The deposition scene alone is worth the price of admission. :-)

(I now apologize for the pretentious opening. I'm writing a thesis on Richard II at the moment -- indeed, I should be writing it *now* -- so I'm still in literary critic mode... ;-) )

Although Jacobi's bravura performance dominates the production, there are a few others that really stand out, chief among them Sir John Gielgud's amazing, intense John of Gaunt (whose last scene is just riveting -- his elegy for England gave me chills), Jon Finch's calculating Bolingbroke, and Charles Gray's York, who fortunately is not played as comic relief.

All this praise is not to say there's nothing about the production that doesn't work. For instance, the confusing and allegorical garden scene is rather unimpressive -- it's difficult and stylized anyway, and neither Janet Maw as the Queen nor Jonathan Adams as the head gardener really pulls it off. And the scene where York accuses his son Aumerle of treason while his wife pleads for pardon, rhyming all the while...well, it isn't one of Shakespeare's finest moments, but these actors, to their credit, went a ways toward making it watchable. And then there are the usual quibbles with the BBC production values -- the sets and such are not particularly impressive-looking; it's more like watching a stage production on film. But that doesn't matter if the performances are good -- and for the most part, these are first-rate.

Excellent Acting in an Infrequently Seen Play

[[e-mail] · 10/10 · 2 March 2009]

Although it is the prelude to the great cycle of Shakespeare's English history plays, Richard II is much less often produced than Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III. In fact, unless you live in England or in a city where there's a theater devoted to Shakespeare or an annual Shakespeare festival, you may never have an opportunity to see this in a stage production.

Happily, the BBC produced the entire cycle of Shakespeare plays in the 1970's and this Richard II is among the best. It has Derek Jacobi as Richard, John Gielgud as John of Gaunt, his eldest uncle, Jon Finch as Bolingbroke, Gaunt's son, later Henry IV, Wendy Hiller as the Duchess of York and Charles Gray as the Duke of York.

Say what you will, no one does Shakespeare better than the British, and Jacobi, Gielgud and Hiller are among the best interpreters of the past century. I saw this play once years ago at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford in a production I thought slightly superior to this one -- but the acting was in no way better. Although I DO live in a city with a Shakespeare theater and attend it regularly, this is only the second production of Richard II that I have managed to see in the ensuing years.

Richard II has the added distinction of being one of the few Shakespeare plays that is entirely in verse. Why it is not more often played, I do not know. If you love Shakespeare, don't miss this DVD.

spectacular acting and a largely excellent production though with some regrettable excisions

[mhk11 · 9/10 · 5 September 2019]

Derek Jacobi delivers a superb performance as Richard II, and John Gielgud is equally riveting as John of Gaunt. Gielgud's rendering of the famous "This royal throne of kings" speech is one of the highlights of the whole BBC Shakespeare Series, as is Jacobi's rendering of the exquisite soliloquy at the beginning of the penultimate scene of the play.

Likewise excellent is Jon Finch, whose portrayal of Bolingbroke is admirably nuanced (in line with his performances as Henry IV in the BBC's productions of the next two plays of the tetralogy). Charles Gray handles the difficult role of the Duke of York commendably. It is amusing to see him paired with Wendy Hiller as his wife, for the two of them were also in the BBC's production of "The Comedy of Errors" (he as Solinus and she as the Abbess). Clifford Rose, in a role very different from the role of Boyet which he performed in the BBC's production of "Love's Labour's Lost," is convincing as the Bishop of Carlisle.

I have rated this production with nine stars rather than with ten, for two reasons. First, the staging of the final scene of the first Act takes for granted the veracity of Bolingbroke's claims (at the outset of Act III) about the homosexual debauchery into which Richard was led by his favorites. Given that nothing else in the play supports those claims, and given that what Bolingbroke says about the Queen is not reconcilable with what we see of the interaction between Richard and her, the truth of Bolingbroke's allegations should not have been taken for granted. The staging of scene I.iv is not strictly inconsistent with anything in the text, but it goes well beyond the text.

Bolingbroke's claims about Richard and his favorites are likewise not supported by the interaction between the Queen and those favorites in II.ii. And here I come to my second reservation about this production. We never see the interaction between the Queen and Richard's favorites, because more than half of scene II.ii is cut. Almost as heavily cut is scene IV.i, including the encomium to Mowbray by the Bishop of Carlisle. Similarly gone are Bolingbroke's remarks about Prince Hal at the opening of V.iii, which prepare the way for the next two plays in the tetralogy. All of these excisions could and should have been avoided, without pushing the length of the production beyond three hours.

Still, my reservations are considerably outweighed by my plaudits. Overall, this version of "Richard II" is the best that I have ever seen.

Brilliant!

[cigmanmark · 10 March 2002]

This is a brilliant adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II. Derek Jacobi is absolutely amazing as Richard (His speech at the end of the film just before he gets murdered is brilliantly read) and so is John Gielgud as John of Gaunt (He is particularly good in his final scene). There are many other superb performances too including Jon Finch as Bolingbroke and Charles Gray as York. For some reason, they chose to film the outdoor scenes indoors and many sets aren't very good too. But seeing as the acting is some of the best i have ever seen, that doesn't matter much.

Richard II: Electric Boogaloo

[imdbaccntuser · 12 September 2020]

There is little alteration of the play. Derek Jacobi gives an Emmy worthy performance and Jon Finch is close behind. A nice addition to the BBC series.