THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD THE SECOND

2018 Almeida Theatre Writer William Shakespeare Design Ultz Light James Farncombe Sound Peter Rice Dramaturg Jeff James Resident Director Lucy Wray Cast Simon Russell Beale / Leo Bill / Martins Imhangbe / Natalie Klamar /John Mackay / Joseph Mydell / Saskia Reeves / Robin Weaver Production / Rehearsal / Backstage Photographs Marc Brenner

“Hill-Gibbins is not a director who does Shakespeare by halves. In his scabrously funny modern dress ‘Measure for Measure’, he filled Vienna with plastic inflatable sex dolls. His droll, deviant ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ presented the forest as a mud-bath version of the id… A fresh and challenging evening though that enhances Russell Beale’s reputation as our foremost Shakespearean actor” The Independent

“Stripped back to a skeletal plot, Shakespeare’s most poetic history play becomes a political thriller — a tale of how to topple of a king… The pulse of war drums gets under the skin and designer Ultz’s iron-grey box set offers no escape. It turns civil war into a cage-fight to the death” Variety

“A Simon Russell Beale masterclass” WhatsOnStage