Richard III
1983: Jane Howell

Made partway through the run of the BBC Shakespeare Plays series, and directed by Jane Howell, this is one of the most peculiar: it is neither a disaster nor wholly successful, but it has a good deal to recommend it.

Part of what makes the production so interesting is its simple allegiance to the original script of the play. Because it unfolds as Shakespeare actually intended (rather than according to some other interpretive plan or high concept) it highlights certain elements of the play that are often otherwise obscured or completely obliterated. High among them is the enormous presence of the women in the play: where in many versions they virtually disappear, here, with a less-truncated script, they emerge as a kind of chthonic force, weighing Richard down with their curses from the earliest stages, and their presence is felt throughout to the end.

The other striking element is the diction pursued by Richard himself, which is middle-class and not at all pretentious or lofty. He limps hastily around, leaping from here to there almost playfully, and in general seems so affable and good-natured that his mounting body-count comes as something more shocking than it might be otherwise were Richard always snarling and twirling his melodramatic mustaches.

As always, the production values are fairly spare, and there is little here that’s remarkable on its own sense: the chief point of watching this (and it’s quite sufficient) is to get the story as Shakespeare himself wrote it. There is little or nothing in the production to give offense aside from the intrinsic issues in the play itself.

Buy the complete BBC Shakespeare Plays at Amazon. Note that this will require a Region 2 player or a region-free player: it will not play on most normal American DVD players. Nevertheless, the price is so reasonable that even with a region-free player thrown into the deal, you’ll come out ahead.

Buy the BBC Shakespeare Plays Histories Giftbox at Amazon. Unlike the complete series, this is in a North American video format, and it includes five plays: Richard II, Henry IV, Part I, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, and Richard III.

Buy the complete set of the BBC Shakespeare Plays or individual plays (including this one) in Region 1 format direct from Ambrose Video.