For all the protestations about monarchs being God’s anointed, you could tell that heaven was against this particular king right from the start. The opening scene, where Richard is at his most authoritative when trying to judge two competing courtiers’ counteraccusations of treason, was repeatedly drowned out on press night by a helicopter circling above the open-air venue. In fact, director Simon Godwin prefaces Shakespeare’s opening with a prologue in which the young Richard is crowned, before the boy actor in question is succeeded by Charles Edwards.

Edwards is a beautiful fit for the role. His long suits are urbanity and sincerity. The former allows him to treat virtually all comedy as light; consequently, when we see the blithe, uncaring side of Richard’s early reign, the little skips of manner which draw laughs from the ever-eager Globe audience do not trivialise the implicit indictment of this weak ruler. Conversely, when the balance of power shifts to Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, and Richard becomes first depressed then deposed, the bitter regretfulness of his introspection is just as plausible in Edwards’ presentation. The acid test, though, is that this control extends even to the phase of transition between the two, when what we see is arguably an early depiction of bipolar disorder with Richard alternately manic and depressed.

Godwin cracks a gag of his own in the casting: John of Gaunt, the ageing Duke of Lancaster, is played by William Gaunt, the ageing character actor: “Old Gaunt indeed”, he jokes about looking haggard before his death, but the pun has an added dimension now. Gaunt gives an especially fine rendition of the classic “this scepter’d isle” speech, as the phrases seem to occur spontaneously to Lancaster and almost to keep him going. Other admirable performances come from William Chubb as the Duke of York, David Sturzaker as a more devout than usual Bolingbroke, and Richard Katz in a clutch of roles from the Archbishop of Canterbury to a philosophical gardener. Godwin, Edwards and company strike absolutely the right balance for a Globe production of this underrated history play: it keeps the groundlings entertained without selling the gravitas short.
 
Written for the Financial Times.