With the width, depth and height of Perth Theatre fully exposed, the inner workings of the stage is laid bare for all to see: radiators to the rear, lighting rigs above, stage hands busying themselves in the wings.

Similarly, in Richard III, played with great gusto by Joseph Arkley who alternates between lounging lothario and clinical executioner at the drop of a curtain (of which there are many in Natasha Jenkins’ stripped back set design), Shakespeare offers a rare glimpse into the warped mind of a tyrant for whom “Conscience is but a word that cowards use”.

Deformed and unloved, power and the pursuit thereof are tricky Dicky’s drivers and woe betide anyone who stands in his way. Siblings, children and even the King himself (Martin McCormick) are despatched with a ruthlessness which would give Sweeney Todd a run for his blood money.

And what’s more, he does it with such chutzpah that the audience are torn between cheering and jeering as he draws upon all of his powers of persuasion to pit “brother to brother, / Blood to blood, self against self” in pursuit of the crown.

The first indication of which is his audacious ploy to win the affections of the King’s daughter-in-law (Mercy Ojelade) whose late husband he had recently slain by offering his throat and challenging her to “Take up the sword again, or take up me”. Needless to say, he survives and then wives.

But like another of Shakepseare’s villains in the “dead butcher” Macbeth, his ambition soon “o’erleaps itself” and he comes to a sticky end. The moral of the story being that a man without a conscience is like a King without a horse: vulnerable and open to attack from all quarters. And though villainous deeds may offer a shortcut to success, in the long run they defile the mind.

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Following on from the critically-acclaimed Knives In Hens, artistic director Lu Kemp has created yet another riveting production which pleases the eye as much as the ear in that the boldness of the stage, sound (Stevie Jones) and lighting (Sally Ferguson) designs are matched by a taut adaptation by dramaturg Frances Poet and a stellar cast whose quality is evident in their mastery of the dense and at times difficult language whose meaning and nuance can often whizz by an audience like the prizes on the conveyor belt of The Generation Game.

But there is no danger in walking away with just a fleeting recollection of memorable goodies and the much vaunted cuddly toy in “A horse, a horse! My Kingdom for a horse!”, for the actors to a man, woman and child (a rotating cast of young performers play an array of roles including two steely-eyed and shell-suited henchmen to chilling effect) sink their teeth into the language with as much vigour as Hannibal Lecter relishes “liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti”.

Particularly Josepth Arkley, who previously played the role of Earl Rivers in a production at The Almedia starring Ralph Fiennes. As well as Alison Peebles and Meg Fraser, the latter of whom features in one of the standout scenes when her character Elizabeth goes toe-to-toe with tricky Dicky in a quickfire round of verbal sparring in order to protect her young daughter from execution.

“‘Tis a vile thing to die,” says Catesby to Hastings before he is hastily despatched. And it is a vile death for Richard and a raft of innocents, all of which are staged with great style. A panache which extends itself to a veritable feast of theatrical tricks and devices such as suspended sandbags for bombs and polythene curtains for the nightmare scene in which Richard realises that conscience is more than just “a word that cowards use, / Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.” But, rather, a vital check on the extremes of human behaviour. Or what the American satirist H. L. Mencken described as “the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.”

Peter Callaghan
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