Bravery is not a word synonymous with the Shakespearean character of Richard III – quite the opposite.
But brave is the actor who plays the ‘crookback’ – Richard actually suffered from scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine – when he himself knows the daunting challenges of disability.
And that is why Arthur Hughes is currently making history at the Royal Shakespeare Company by being the first disabled actor to play Richard. The 30-year-old’s radial dysplasia means his right arm is not as ’normal’ as his left.
Brave, too, is the director Gregory Doran, whose first production, after stepping down as the RSC’s Artistic Director, is the play which helped to catapult his late husband Sir Antony Sher to worldwide fame back in 1984.
It is also the 63-year-old’s first production since he took compassionate leave from the RSC to care for Sir Antony.
And Doran's penchant for memorably arresting moments occurs during the opening scene when, unlike predecessors who sought to convey Richard’s deformity, Hughes confronts his own reality, stares starkly at his arm and challenges us in the audience to do the same as he recites the lines:
‘I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up’
He speaks of a 'breathing world', but this is momentarily a breathtaking world in which Shakespeare’s speech hits us the harder and with even more resonance.
However, Hughes soon disavows the audience of any thoughts that such considerations can diminish his performance, first as an actor, and then in terms of his character's evil machinations.
Of all those onstage, Hughes is the most sprightly, the most nimble and the most instantly eye-catching. And, by the play’s denouement, it is his villainy and self-inflicted demise that have focused the audience’s minds far more than his physicality.
He ably transforms from the spat-upon, successful seducer of Lady Anne (an admirable portrayal by Rosie Sheehy) – widow of one of this earlier victims – to dismissive ruler, willing to shed his closest allies, such as the Duke of Buckingham (superbly played by Jamie Wilkes), to chastened child of the Duchess of York (the magnificent Claire Benedict)
And, as the body count of his victims mounts, so does he, literally – on a phantom horse comprised of the ghosts of those he has killed – at fateful Bosworth Field.
The course of his self-obsessed ambition sees Richard, with abandon, discard those close to him and, after war erupts and the ruler eventually meets his comeuppance, there follows the calming promise of much-desired peace. For any who doubt Shakespeare's relevance in the 21st century, simply watch this play and then let your thoughts turn towards eastern Europe and another wicked protagonist.
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until October 8.
For more details and booking, contact: rsc.org.uk/box office 01789 331111
