How bracing it is to see this rarely performed 1593 piece, Christopher Marlowe’s rumbustious slant on weak and whimsical kingship. The resonances with Richard II are unmissable but this work lacks the psychological acuity and, ultimately, pathos of Shakespeare.
The synopsis of the action reads like a small encyclopaedia and, sensibly, director Nick Bagnall has edited the text, but even so the pell-mell snowballing of events here gives a slightly makeshift, pantomime quality to the action. It’s hard, ultimately, to feel over-involved in these amorous and regal affairs, or to get a meaningful sense of the threat to the kingdom.
The trouble all starts with the love of Edward (Tom Stuart) for his favourite, Piers Gaveston (Beru Tessema), which alienates both the nobles and the church. His wife, Queen Isabella (Katie West), is at first a hapless bystander and eventually a key conspirator as Edward suffers one of the least seemly deaths in all tragic literature.
Bagnall’s production is admirably vivid, with some appealingly fluid use of the auditorium — courtiers stand among us to speak and sometimes clamber over us in their urgency to be heard. There’s strong work at the centre from Stuart but elsewhere in the 10-strong company there is some uneven acting. Across all houses and productions now, the Globe really does need to attract a stronger overall calibre of performer.
Until April 20
