Kevin Spacey in Richard III

We bought our tickets the day booking opened but last Saturday was the earliest we could get tickets to see Spacey in Richard III.

Having seen him in both Speed the Plow (excellent) and Inherit the Wind (outstanding) and then having seen the reviews we knew we were in for a treat - and we were not disappointed.

I've never studied the play, although I've seen it twice before (with Anthony Sher and Ian McKellan in case you're interested) and apart from the outstanding performances by both actors and very interesting productions my main recollection is a complex plot governed by by a mass of intertwined dynastic relationships.

The Old Vic chose the "information light" route for the programme: as a standalone production there was more focus on the psychology of tyranny rather than the history of the War of the Roses, and as I watched it I realised that this silo approach worked and kept me focussed on the play.  The only element which I found slightly disconcerting was the Anglo American cast: the colour blind casting worked well - as it always does - but to me, with the sole and honourable exception of Spacey who gave a towering performance, the American cast members seemed to struggle with the text.

Spacey won the acting honours, but I'd also award prizes to Gemma Jones (as a witch-like Queen Margaret who haunted many of the scenes) and Haydn Gwynne (as the Duchess of York) who was more than capable to standing up to Spacey's elemental force.

As we drove home from the Old Vic we heard the sound of many police sirens, and as country bumpkins we thought this was standard for a Staurday night in Londeon; it was only when we checked the headlines on Sunday morning that we realised that there had been riots.  The play includes scenes where the citizens of London are persuaded to call for the Duke of Gloucester to assume the crown as Richard III; on Saturday evening their descendants clearly had other priorities.

Inherit The Wind

We've just been to see Inherit the Wind at the Old Vic, a dramatisation of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial with Kevin Spacey and David Troughton giving brilliant performaces as the defence and prosection attorneys.


When the play was first performed in the 1950s it was seen as a critique of the anti-communist witch hunts (it appeared at the same time as The Crucible), but following recent news reports about the alleged support for the teaching of creationism in schools, it now comes across as a critique of the idiocies of biblical literalism. Philip Pullman wrote a facinating article showing how both political and religious totalitarianism fears knowledge, and seeing a play like this makes us realise that the battle with superstition will be never-ending.


I've recently been reading Darwin, and his "theory" is substantiated by examples gleaned from years of detailed research and observation. For the record I'm not against the teaching of creationism in schools: just so long as it forms part of a general session on creation myths and no one makes a claim that there is the merest iota of truth in it.