The Shakespeare Series: King Richard II

Richard II is my favorite of Shakespeare’s history plays. I’ll get in to why that is so in a later posting, but for now, I just want to point out that I might not be 100% objective about this one.

Amazon prime includes only one version of Richard II, and unfortunately, it is The Shakespeare Series: King Richard II directed by William Woodman for Bard Productions and The Shakespeare Video Society, the same outfit that brought us the dismal Romeo & Juliet directed by Larry Sullivan. At first, I thought this was going to be a reprise of that performance, as the boom microphone that improved so many of Juliet's scenes makes a brief appearance in Act I, scene 1 of Richard II.

Luckily, Woodman and stars David Birney (as Richard) and Paul Shenar (as Bolingbroke) managed to keep me entertained enough that if the boom appeared again, I didn't notice it. I love these two characters, and Birney and Shenar pulled them off beautifully. Richard is a vain, imperious, and ineffective king. Bolingbroke is laconic, calculating, and pragmatic. Richard is clearly unsuited to the responsibilities of power, and Bolingbroke is the perfect candidate to depose him.

As with all the Shakespeare Series productions I've seen, the production qualities are not the best. The actors - especially minor characters - could be better rehearsed. The costumes look like they were designed for stage, not the small screen. The sets are basic black spaces with steps and very little dressing, much like something you would see in a low-budget stage production. Some might find the video quality to be disappointing. It looks like Amazon copied this from a much-used VHS tape, and that may well be the case. If you watch it on your tablet or laptop, it's not too distracting, but the poor quality is obvious on our big-screen tv.

If you're of my generation you'll spend much of the film recognizing actors from Knight Rider, The Love Boat, and Spider-Man. 

I would watch this again (and nearly did before writing this!), and while it isn't the definitive Richard II, I would recommend it as worth watching.