This is the first significant theatre production at Alexandra Palace since 1935. Works costing £27 million have revived this Victorian pleasure dome, preserving the auditorium’s air of decayed grandeur while putting modern infrastructure in place.
Shakespeare’s Richard III, concerned with grand gestures and redemption, is a fitting choice to redefine the space. The play is also a topical vision of extreme political upheaval, and rising star Tom Mothersdale, left, anchors this interpretation by director John Haidar and the company Headlong.
Mothersdale’s intensely physical take on Richard is influenced by the late Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. He’s a mixture of clown and jackal, squirming with glee as he strikes the poses of a pantomime villain. Yet he’s also a traumatised figure, torn between the desire to be loathed and the need to be loved.
The mirrored panels of Chiara Stephenson’s design accentuate the play’s focus on vanity, appearance and reversal. Each of Richard’s violent acts is accompanied by a burst of red light and an angry buzz that calls to mind an unusually macabre game show.
Haidar has tweaked the play to include snippets of the earlier Henry VI, part three, which establish Richard’s murderous impulses and the ghostly memories that haunt him. But he’s keen to move the action along swiftly, and there’s vivid support from Stefan Adegbola, Heledd Gwynn and Eileen Nicholas.
It’s an assured staging rather than a consistently compelling one, and in truth the main draw is the venue itself — a spectacular example of shabby chic. Yet with around 900 seats and in a location not ideally served by public transport, it may prove hard to fill.
Until March 31
Latest theatre reviews
