Richard II

Synopsis: A production, re-staged for television, of the National Theatre’s 1995 production of Richard II directed by Deborah Warner with Fiona Shaw in the title role.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Television
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Transmission details: 22 Mar 1997 at 20:15 (Channel: BBC2)
Duration: 130 mins

Notes: DVD version released as part of the Screen Plays series by Illuminations Media on November 24 2016.
Figures: Viewing audience of 496, 000 (consolidated viewing)
5% share of the viewing audience of BBC2 for that day
(Figures provided by BARB, the Broadcasters Audience Research Board, 1997)
Reviews: According to Bernard Adams, reviewer for the Times Educational Supplement, as a production of "long and pitiless close-ups" this adaptation is "interestingly poised between being a film and a play" ('Risk that pays off’, 28 March 1997).

Fiona Shaw on her decision to play Richard II: "I certainly had no intention of playing a man. ... The way I look at it is that I am a non-man playing somebody who perceives himself to be a non-man." Quoted in Radio Times 22-28 March 1997, p. 7.

Of the stage production Michael Billington writes - "The audience is bisected by a traverse-stage roughly the length of a cricket pitch. This gives extraordinary urgency to the Bolingbroke-Mowbray tournament at Coventry where we become neck-craning spectators half expecting to see horses galloping out of the end doors. But it also puts us throughout in the position of eavesdropping spectators on this royal debacle and leads to striking images." Michael Billington, The Guardian, 5.June 1995

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Notes: Illuminations produces and distributes programmes on arts-related subjects, some of which are made for television and others in conjunction with cultural institutions to accompany specific exhibitions. Many titles are available for sale on DVD, including continuing series on leading contemporary and twentieth century artists and modern architecture, as well as a few programmes on religion, drama, history and ideas.

Fiona Shaw	King Richard II
Sian Thomas	Queen Isabel
Graham Crowden	John of Gaunt
Paola Dionisotti	Duchess of Gloucester
David Lyon	Earl of Salisbury
David Lyon	Thomas Mowbray
Donald Sinden	Edmund of Langley, Duke of York
John Rogan	Bishop of Carlisle
John Rogan	Lord Marshal
Julian Rhind-Tutt	Duke of Aumerle
Kevin McKidd	Harry Percy
Nicholas Gecks	Bushy
Nicholas Gecks	Duke of Surrey
Paola Dionisotti	Duchess of York
Paola Dionisotti	Lady attending the Queen
Richard Bremmer	Bishop of Carlisle
Struan Rodger	Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland

British Universities Film & Video Council