The prince who would be king
King Charles III Richmond Theatre
★★★★ ★
After a lifetime spent waiting to assume his destiny, the Prince of Wales has at last become King. His late mother rose serenely above the turmoil of party politics, but as he awaits coronation, Charles III begins to take an inconvenient interest in legislation. Almost his first act as monarch is to refuse to sign a bill on the statutory regulation of the press.
Mike Bartlett’s play, critically praised at its Almeida premiere and West End transfer, now goes on tour with Robert Powell taking the role of Charles, which was originally played by Tim Piggott-Smith.
We are accustomed to seeing the Royal family depicted in drama, but Bartlett’s interest, aptly explored in Shakespearean blank verse, is in the travails of a man trying to accommodate his particular temperament to the inflexible lineaments of duty.
We infer from Prince Charles’s obiter dicta that his interpretation of the role of monarch envisages more freedom of personal expression than his mother permits herself. Tim Piggott-Smith’s account of the future King described a moving arc from idealism to baffled fury to tragic resignation. Robert Powell is stiff and somewhat unregal in the role of the as-yet-un-annointed King: his hesitant demeanour suggests a man trying on a garment that doesn’t quite fit.
Alternately soothed and chivvied by Penelope Beaumont’s Camilla, he gives a persuasive firstact account of Charles’s integrity, obstinacy and melancholia. But in the second act, where Piggott-Smith found a profound complexity in the unravelling of his attempts to redefine the terms of royalty, Powell is less convincing. As he loses control, his monarch is more irritable than imperious, though he finds a muted pathos in the final scene where Charles, like Shakespeare’s Richard II, belatedly recognises the hollowness of the crown.
Bartlett incorporates a range of Shakespearean references: the ghost of Diana, Princess of Wales utters mischievously contradictory predictions; the Duchess of Cambridge ( given a nice touch of minxiness by Jennifer Bryden) has a Lady Macbeth moment; Prince Harry (Richard Glaves) channels Hotspur, and so on. But the drama is more than mere Royal rebus. With thoughtful direction by Rupert Goold, it eloquently anticipates a debate about the role, both personal and public, of the monarchy.