Change Your Image
Deana-morris-home
Reviews
The Hollow Crown: Richard II (2012)
Living, vital Shakespeare
A thousand years ago I studied Richard II for O-level English with my fellow classmates in Olwyn Lemar's English lessons at the dreadful, dreary comprehensive, Drayton School. It is a tribute to Mrs Lemar's talents that we could put together essays on is play, for although it is packed with soldiers, swords and kings it deals with great ideas - loyalty, betrayal, greed, fear, cowardice, love.
This film of Henry Bolingbroke's betrayal, banishment and return, a King's wickedness, weakness and vanity, is beautifully shot, marvellously acted, perfectly cast.
Shakespeare's glory is its Truth, it's exploration of the core of all that we are - greedy, ambitious, wicked, good, loyal, proud and ridiculous.Our lives are mirrored in the past and the struggles for power are forever.
A powerful story, a powerful production, a stellar cast. Well worth your time. Enjoy.