The Tragedy Of Richard III

History is written by the winners. We form imagined communities from the stories that we collectively tell ourselves, and categorise experiences in accordance with the specific social, historical, and intellectual forces that are responsible for publishing them. Change is not synonymous with progress, and we know that normativity is not an observation, but rather a political and moral evaluation. Physical differences are not a sign of evil forces at work, and sequences of historical events are devoid of simplistic causation. We know all of these things.

However, this hasn't stopped playwrights Marcel Dorney and Dan Evans from taking it upon themselves to try and remind us. What is striking is that they have chosen to attempt it by wrangling William Shakespeare's The Tragedy Of King Richard III into this messy affair. It is a spectacularly designed production that aims to expose the silhouette of uncertainty that surrounds the portrayal of any historical character, that unfortunately bleeds dry the life from the original text in the process.

There are moments of levity and genuine suspension of disbelief, but the heavy-handed meta-dialogue and painstakingly overwrought conceptualisation of the play often end up evoking more sympathy than empathy towards the eponymous character. As a result, his portrayal is just as problematic as Shakespeare's villainous deception of him, only we lose the thrill of the story, as its dramatic gravity is replaced with nervous hand-wringing.