Review Roundup: Did Jonathan Bailey Make an Impression in RICHARD II?

Richard II is charismatic, eloquent and loved by his friends. And a disastrous King – dishonest, capricious and politically incompetent. Echoing down the centuries is the perennial problem: how to deal with a ruler who has a rock solid right to rule but is set on wrecking the country he leads.

Richard II is played by Jonathan Bailey, whose past work includes Bridgerton, Fellow Travellers, Cassio in Nicholas Hytner’s National Theatre production of Othello and Edgar to Ian McKellen’s King Lear. He has also won an Olivier Award for his role of Jamie in Company and is Fiyero in the Wicked movie.

What did the critics think of the show?

Richard II runs at the Bridge Theatre until 10 May

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

Cindy Marcolina, BroadwayWorld: A drastic lack of identity keeps this Richard II moored, making it a standard modern-day adaptation that refuses to delve into anything particular. It’s neither political nor personal enough to leave the same mark that its actors do. There are some clever interpretations, like the gages (gloves thrown in challenge) coming in the shapes of British passports, but they’re drops in an ocean of blandness. Hytner needs to thank the company, his composer, and sound designer: they make the play.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: A play with abundant beauty to its verse (“This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,” sighs the ailing Gaunt, played efficiently by Martin Carroll), its lyricism becomes slightly muted, though never by Bailey, whose words glitter with feeling. Royce Pierreson’s Bullingbrook is a man of action but you do not get beneath his skin. Phoenix Di Sebastiani, as the allegedly traitorous Mowbray, is spirited, while Christopher Osikanlu Colquhoun as the Earl of Northumberland bears gravitas.

Nick Curtis, The Standard: Richard II, with its rigid structure and strict double-narrative about two different styles of kingship, is never going to be a crowd-pleaser unless it’s by star casting. Hence Bailey. He commands the stage and even allows a little camp to seep into the character (Richard’s marriage to his shopaholic wife may be transactional). He doesn’t sugar the king’s brattish reluctance to cede the crown but in later speeches attains a stricken grandeur.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: The most compelling quality of the staging – driven on by a Hitchcockian score by Grant Olding – is the way that it treats the unfolding events not as historical inevitability, but as if they are changing moment to moment. From the start when Bailey’s petulant, self-obsessed king first confronts Royce Pierreson’s bullish Bullingbrook (listed according to first quarto spelling) in a scene where a lot of angry noblemen are getting very cross and shouting at each other, while flinging down their passports, it’s never quite clear what is going to happen next.

Andrzej Lukowski, TimeOut: But despite a committed performance from Bailey, I struggled to get my head around some of the details. Richard returning from Ireland with his crown in a placcy bag is perhaps a droll illustration of his smallness as a man, but it left me struggling to see the exact point. He’s still the king of England – doing a version of the play where he is just an in-over-his-head executive would be interesting, but it never quite feels like that’s what Hytner is pushing.

Clive Davis, The Times: The actors also seem constrained by Bob Crowley’s narrow design and the use of hydraulics to raise and lower sections of the stage. The Bridge’s auditorium has to be one of the most atmospheric in the country, but here the rising and falling of platforms — which worked so well in Hytner’s magnificent version of Guys and Dolls — becomes more of a distraction. The same is true of Grant Olding’s music, which might as well have been written for yet another TV drama about a maverick detective.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: Grant Olding’s (sometimes intrusive) music blends a Crown-like solemnity with Succession’s tinkling intrigue. Textual tweaking assists clarity (though forfeiting Act III’s garden scene, sidelining the Queen): it’s openly averred to his face that Richard was behind Gloucester’s death at Mowbray’s hands. And Bailey gives us some notable tics: an insecure digging into his pockets, a need to dart about, lots of stiff, tilting head-movements, denoting a tenuous authority. Still, initially, he’s businesslike, faceless, even rather flat; his reckless resorting to coke-snorting looks de trop.

Olivia Rook, London Theatre: Bailey is aided by a strong supporting cast. Pierreson’s Bullingbrook is a cool and calculated foil to Bailey’s impulsive king, bringing a powerful renegade energy to the production with his band of rebels. Martin Carroll, who stepped in as John of Gaunt, is desperate in his final moments, pleading for his country, which is being ruined at the hands of Richard. Simkins, no stranger to the Bridge stage having recently starred in its production of Guys & Dolls, is a committed Duke of York, unfailingly loyal even when it means selling out his own son, the Duke of Aumerle. This leads to a humorous scene between the Duke, Duchess of York (Amanda Root), and Aumerle (Vinnie Heaven), as they plead Bullingbrook’s forgiveness, scuttling across the stage on bended knee.

Sam Marlowe, The Stage: Flinging out bitchy aperçus and florid pronouncements, and passing life-changing edicts on a whim, Bailey’s is a Richard who is instantly guaranteed to make enemies. His boredom with the actual business of affairs of state is flagrant, and we see him lounging, snorting cocaine and enjoying some homoerotic flirtation with his hangers-on, or kicking the walking frame out from under a frail John of Gaunt (on press night, Martin Carroll standing in for an indisposed Clive Wood). Besotted with his own celebrity, he heedlessly courts laughs by flinging out cruel jokes and, on hearing of violent rebellion erupting in Ireland, is most immediately preoccupied by the attention-grabbing opportunity he thinks it offers to play the conquering hero.