Richard II
1960: Michael Hayes
This early BBC miniseries called An Age of Kings was recently rescued from undeserved obscurity by a DVD release, and it’s a treasure. It represents a decision to put the whole sequence of Shakespeare’s two tetralogies together into a continuous whole and then break them up again into shorter segments. In the process, some of the theatrical structure of the originals is compromised; it is, nevertheless, very competently played. There are some of the best actors of their generation in these episodes, and they are, despite 1960s black-and-white television production standards, eminently worth watching. The first two episodes (“The Hollow Crown” and “The Deposing of a King”) cover the material of Richard II. A youthful Sean Connery plays the firebrand Hotspur in the later Henry IV pieces of the series. The whole series is highly recommended, in much the same way as I have recommended The Hollow Crown: the continuity of the episodes gives them a coherence in narrative and historical sense that cannot normally be garnered by looking at the plays piecemeal.
This performance of Richard II is worth seeing on its own terms, as well. Like the version in The Hollow Crown, it is substantially trimmed, and if you can only watch one, the best, to my way of thinking, will still be the BBC Shakespeare version of 1978 or the RSC version of 2013. But this is a very watchable presentation of the play. The video is of course black and white, and the script is cut to a bare two hours, but the performances that are here are quite good. Richard himself is not (I think) as interesting as those offered by Derek Jacobi, David Tennant, or Ben Whishaw, nor is Edgar Wreford’s John of Gaunt arguably as nuanced as those of John Gielgud or Patrick Stewart, but the comparison is in both cases still interesting.
Abbot of Westminster: Michael Graham Cox
Bishop of Carlisle: Frank Windsor
Duchess of York: Mary Law
Duke of Aumerle: John Greenwood
Duke of Norfolk: Noel Johnson
Duke of York: Geoffrey Bayldon
Earl of Northumberland: George A. Cooper
Earl of Salisbury: Leon Shepperdson
Gardener: Gordon Gostelow
Groom: Julian Glover
Harry Percy: Sean Connery
Henry Bolingbroke: Tom Fleming
John of Gaunt: Edgar Wreford
Keeper: Michael Graham Cox
King Richard the Second: David William
Lady: Maggie Barton
Lord Berkeley: John Ringham
Lord Marshal: Julian Glover
Lord Ross: Alan Rowe
Lord Willoughby: Gordon Gostelow
Queen: Juliet Cooke
Servant: Anthony Valentine
Servant: Terence Lodge
Servant: Brian Smith
Sir Henry Green: Jerome Willis
Sir John Bushy: David Andrews
Sir Pierce of Exton: Robert Lang
Sir Stephen Scroop: Patrick Garland
Sir William Bagot: Terence Lodge
Buy the BBC series An Age of Kings at Amazon. This is the black and white series made for television in 1960, containing both tetralogies of Shakespeare’s histories: Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3, and Richard III.