The Hollow Crown: Richard II (2012)

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Siskoid
The Hollow Crown, the recent prestige television event staging the Shakespeare plays that are part of the Henriad in actual locations with primo actors, starts with the poetically beautiful Richard II. Ben Wishaw is great in the lead, juggling cold menace and wet self-pity, though one gets the sense he was mostly cast because he looked like Christ. In the play, Richard does compare himself into Jesus (and his betrayers to Judas), and the production here leans into that HARD, conjuring images from the Gospels or, at a pinch, from the Lives of the Saints. There's a necessary irony there, the king's hubris leading him to martyr himself in a way that betrays a certain showmanship. Certainly, not something we'd see in current-day politics (cough, cough). Rory Kinnear has the less showy role of Henry IV, but he does a lot of heavy lifting, playing him as a true patriot awkward and disturbed by Richard's dramatics, and you could do a lot worse than Patrick Stewart as de Gaunt eulogizing England. The Hollow Crown's first chapter is a great showcase for actors, even if I sometimes feel the direction is a little cheesy - wonky close-ups, slow-motion, etc. - and all the stuff with the Queen pretty disposable. 3 years 5 months ago