A peevish, fixated ruler, devoid of authority, buffeted by a political climate of incessant, near-insane factionalism, beset in particular by an arrogant courtier for whom no amount of concession is ever sufficient... No, I’ve no idea what kind of contemporary relevance the programmers may have seen here.

Seriously, though, I’m not the only one who can’t help thinking of Brexit when watching Richard II. Even a couple of years ago, no audience would so much as hear the second half of John of Gaunt’s great “this England” speech: we’d all be luxuriating in the “sceptr’d isle” rhapsodising with which it begins, and then turn off. In the Wanamaker, though, applause comes for Dona Croll’s delivery of the subsequent lines to the effect that “England... is now bound in with shame... England, that was wont to conquer others,/ Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.” These are the images that hit home today.

The principal image of Adjoa Andoh and Lynette Linton’s production, however, is much simpler. This is the first ever production of Shakespeare on a major British stage by a company consisting entirely of women of colour. Conspicuous though this is, it has little bearing on the substance of the production. Yes, the costuming and score interweave a number of ethnic heritages, but do not significantly transplant the action: we are still watching 14^th-century English nobles, with no more question than arose from the casual modern dress worn by the predominantly white-male company in the Almeida’s production of the same play a couple of months ago. It’s also true that the few female characters – in particular, Leila Farzad as Richard’s Queen – seem distinctly less tokenistic and more innately insightful in such a context. But, strange as it sounds, the ethnic/gender dimension doesn’t really inform the interpretation of the play.

What does inform it is Andoh’s performance in the title role. She is a gloriously formidable actor: strong vocally, physically, emotionally, intellectually. And herein lies the problem when she is playing a character whose entire personality is defined by his lack of strength. Richard is at first a capricious, rather distant monarch; when challenged by the rebel Bolingbroke, he crumbles and cedes the throne to his opponent (as Henry IV), discovering in this final phase of his life a powerful, embittered eloquence, but one which he can only get away with because in it he reserves no status for himself. Andoh’s Richard begins as a tyrant, disintegrates into tantrums and truculence but even in abdication still seems to be talking down to Henry; only when imprisoned in Pomfret Castle shortly before his murder do we briefly and occasionally see flashes of resignation. A Richard as firm as this would never have been susceptible to such a rebellion, and in the face of Andoh’s unremitting vigour, Sarah Niles hardly gets a chance to establish a countervailing identity for Bolingbroke. It’s a narratively clear production, but one which in the end stands out for the wrong reasons.

Written for the Financial Times.