[In the following review of Steven Pimlott's 2000 Royal Shakespeare Company staging of Richard II, Macaulay applauds the stark production for its arresting investigation of existential themes.]

Who is worthy to rule? Shakespeare's plays ask the question again and again, and it is a central irony of Richard II that the title character only starts to seem fit for the throne as he abandons it. Shakespeare is often at his most powerful when he shows the gap between the crown and its former wearer: as when the deposed Henry VI is arrested, as when the Duke in Measure for Measure wanders his own state in disguise, and—supreme—as when King Lear rages on the heath. The key point is one we all know in life: that it is only when you have stopped doing something that you fully understand what it was you were doing. Raised, however, to the level of hereditary governance, the issue becomes tragic. Shakespeare examines it from every angle: what is royal heredity? Does it bring divine right with it? And who is worthier to rule than the ruler? Just as Richard II only seems kingly as he ceases to be king, so Bolingbroke only starts to seem unfit for the throne at the moment that he becomes Henry IV.

Richard II is a wonderful play to return to, and it seems always to add up differently in the mind. It begins very much in medias res, and yet it launches issues that Shakespeare will go on developing through both parts of Henry IV and will not resolve until Henry V.

Finally all the issues of the play seem to ricochet off each other in Richard's mind in the extraordinary speech—“I have been studying how I may compare / This prison where I live unto the world”—with which he starts his final scene. Richard is a witty character, and in him Shakespeare develops another of his favourite themes—the misuse of wit, its difference from wisdom, and the punishment meted out on those who wielded wit wrongly. “I wasted time,” Richard utters with dry ruefulness in this prison speech, “and now doth time waste me.” Seldom in world drama has a sophisticated mind been given greater pathos.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has not yet completed its cycle of the Shakespeare's eight central history plays in Stratford-upon-Avon—Richard III will materialise there in February—but it is good already that the earlier productions of the cycle are queueing up to transfer to various stages in London, and that Steven Pimlott's staging of Richard II has now arrived in the Pit. This is in several ways the most audacious production of all the cycle; whereas Michael Boyd's recent Henry VI productions show the plays' roots in the medieval mystery plays, this one shows how Shakespeare looks forward to both Brecht and Beckett. It is also by far the best Shakespearian work I have seen from Pimlott. Although I still do not admire the clever monkeying around with the text he sanctions here, this remains much the best Richard II of my experience precisely because, everywhere else, he makes the play's text so keenly eloquent.

And simple. There are a few of the production devices that, usually, I resent—notably the fresh soil of a newly dug grave on one side of the stage (with which Richard smears himself at one point), and the big box looking-glass that turns later into Richard's prison and finally his coffin—but which actually here are so lightly used that all they do is to underline, simply, just what the characters are saying and to trace connections that are already there in the play. Meanings and messages are not being forced upon you. Nothing gets in the way of Shakespeare's dramaturgy.

The production could not be so lucid were it not for its cast. Sam West's performance as Richard is marvellous in its blend of intelligence and modesty. He seems almost to make himself transparent in his effort to reveal the play, the character, the lines—and yet he has natural authority. In the simplest, surest brushstrokes, he shows us the essence of each speech, each scene. David Troughton as Bolingbroke, Alfred Burke as John of Gaunt, Catherine Walker as the Queen, Janet Whiteside as the Duchesses both of Gloucester and York are no less fine; only the slightly vain performance of Alexis Daniel as Aumerle seems self-regarding and actorly; several small roles are played with striking force by Tim Treloar. Long after the performance, the play carries on in your head.