In olden days, English kings used to be yielded up by the sea. Any time you were at the seaside you could expect to see a lone rowing boat coming ashore in some quiet little cove and there would be a king in it.
We don't necessarily go to Shakespeare to try to find out exactly what happened in history, or BBC adaptations- in fact I've no idea where we do go- and so for all we know it could happen exactly like that, Richard II, Henry IV and all forming an orderly queue to kiss some wet sand.
This was also a great production for heads being chopped off if you like that sort of thing. Although as a general rule I don't, I had to admit that the Bushy and Green decapitations were some of the best I've seen recently. Bagot survived with Sir Stephen Scroop until they both had their heads rolled like bowling balls along the floor in front of the king along with a fine selection of suspect bishops and dukes that the new king wasn't keen on. However, Aumerle had a nightmare and couldn't get a thing right, finally blundering most catastrophically by presenting Henry with the new Richard of Bordeaux, all coffined up and ready to go.
Ben Whishaw was effete and petulant as the luxuriant spendthrift representative of God on earth (so, quite honestly, why shouldn't he be) while Rory Kinnear continues to annexe Shakespearean parts like a colonial power of an actor. Rory's great, leading his generation in Shakespeare, I would think, I just wish I didn't occasionally see his father in him, rolling his eyes and looking shifty.
The cameraman was a star of this tremendous show, too, finding angles in the scenes with the crown, two tiny images of Richard in the shattered mirror and any number of well-chosen shots.
This was a thorough success. Some of Shakespeare's best passages, the Christ-like Richard diminishing to that familiar loinclothed, shabby figure that can be Lear or Timon or any other broken man you can think of, the litany of human failings and evidence that the BBC still has some cash to do something worthwhile excellently well.
Enjoyed it immensely, thank you very much.
