Contact Music - Michael West - Click here to read the full article
Richard II: Is David Tennant The Finest Actor in Britain?
The body of the article was a gathering of highlights from the many glowing reviews from the press. BBC News also published a similar collection of reviews on bbc.co.uk.
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David Tennant opens as Richard on a night of crowds and surprises
"I don't know what sort of Richard the Second we were supposed to expect from David Tennant
– he's not a "soft" actor, after all – but he certainly sprang a few
surprises at Stratford-upon-Avon last night that shredded all previously
held notions about a renegade royal or martyred monarch.
A sort of angry cynicism was at the root of it, . . .
(David) Warner was temperamentally ideal as both Richard II and, especially,
Henry VI and it's probably the case that Tennant does at least share
with him a gift for seeming out of place on the throne.
But he also makes something unexpectedly wilful of Richard, something truly bizarre, . . ."
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| In foreground: L-R- Nigel Lindsay (Bolingbroke), David Tennant (Richard
II)
In background: L-R- Simon Thorp (Surrey), Oliver Rix (Aumerle), Jim
Hooper (Bishop of Carlisle), Keith Osborn (Abbot), Sean Chapman
(Northumberland), Youssef Kerkour (Fitzwater), Edmund Wiseman (Harry
Percy). PHOTO by Kwame Lestrade |
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The Independent - Henry Hitchings - Four Stars - Click here to read the whole article
David Tennant returns to the RSC with a vivid,
intelligent performance as Richard II in Gregory Doran’s clear, detailed
and dynamic production
"Tennant does not disappoint. He delivers a vivid, intelligent
performance, at least as mesmerising as the best of his TV work. He is
certainly not afraid to make Richard dislikable. Instead of the poetic
soul we tend to see, his Richard is irritable. In the early scenes he is
petulant and smug.
With fluting voice and waist-length hair, he is a picture of prissy narcissism.
And he skips around the stage like a child who has had too many sweets.
From
the outset Tennant’s Richard is excitingly unpredictable and as his
authoriy crumbles he transforms intriguingly from a gilded tyrant into a
more vulnerable character — yet one who is capable of bursts of
aggression. By the end he is a holy man in a flowing white robe."
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Stratford Observer - Ian Hughes - Click here to read the whole article.
". . . this flowing haired king is measured to a tee, and really shines when he
realises the game's up. His death of kings speech is a pin-drop moment -
in a play featuring some of the most lyrical verse in the canon - after
he is literally brought to earth with a bump knowing the crown is lost.
Essentially the see-saw story of the rise of Bolingbroke, the taciturn
opportunist, against the fall of all-talk Richard, . . . but there's a bold no nonsense
confidence to Nigel Lindsay's portrayal, which brings out the best of
Tennant in the deposition scene."
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The Stage - Michael Coveney - Click here to read the complete article
"The Royal Shakespeare Company enters a new era under Gregory Doran
with this decisive, intelligent and notably well-spoken revival of a
chronicle play that usually makes of its leading character a preening
cissy or a plaintive saint.
David Tennant, resuming a partnership with Doran that gave us an
electrified Hamlet five years ago, could not be less like the
stereotype: he’s lanky, fierce, sardonic and obviously regarded, not
least by the no-nonsense, politically ambitious Bolingbroke of Nigel
Lindsay, as a bit of a liability. And not just because of the Tiny Tim
hairstyle and varnished fingernails.
Something peculiar is going on with Richard’s own estimation of his role
in life. The great speeches of entitlement are skewed through a
critical lack of conviction, as if he’s sleep-walked into the monarchy
by mistake. And in the context of the emblematic severity of the rest of
the play, it makes for a performance that is as curiously enigmatic as
it is sometimes unfathomable."
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The Birmingham Mail - Gary Young - Four Stars - Click here to read the full review
"There has been great excitement about David Tennant’s much
anticipated return to the RSC stage since he wowed packed audiences with
his Hamlet here in 2008.
He is the poster boy for the company’s new season and with such high
profile billing there was great expectation as he flounced onto the
stage as a flamboyant and effeminate Richard II.
Sporting a crop of wavy long hair, painted nails, and a sceptre held
in his limp wrist, Tennant’s portrayal of the tragic king was that of a
self-obsessed spoilt child.
Tennant is excellent as a narcissistic Richard who sees his group of
admirers diminish, leaving him a desperate and lonely king in this
adaption of the history play by RSC’s artistic director Greg Doran.
A moment of tenderness comes when the king shares a kiss with his
youthful cousin Aumerle - allowing us a brief glimpse of his softer side
and adding much impact to a dramatic betrayal later on.
Tennant appears vulnerable and Jesus-like in his final scenes -
bare-footed, sporting long white robes with a large dominating cross
around his neck, holding aloft his crown as he finally gives it away to
Bolingbroke."
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The Express - Neil Norman - Five Stars - Click for full article
David Tennant gives a bravado performance of a multi-layered,
complex and intelligent medieval king in Shakespeare's masterful history
play
"Often represented as effete and capricious, even gay,
Richard needs a very special actor to seek out all the crevices of his
personality.
David Tennant is that actor. From the
moment he arrives on stage in a kind of gilded sheath with his long hair
held back by a crown to attend his uncle Gloucester's funeral, he shows
us with sly precision a man in thrall to his own vanity, seduced by his
anointed position and intelligent enough to be aware of both.
Whether sashaying around like a 14th-century David Bowie or stumbling
like a Christ figure hauled before Bolingbroke's Pontius Pilate,
Tennant captures Richard's androgyny, suggesting a man more asexual than
bisexual.
But he is no pushover. When the murderers come for him he goes down fighting. I was sorely tempted to cheer."
