REVIEW: Edward II might need a second look

There’s been much talk of ‘royal mania’, over the last two years. We’ve had weddings, jubilees, births, street parties, public holidays. Every street corner in the West End seems bedecked with tiny, collectors’ mugs featuring the six-week-old baby prince.

We’d do well to remember, however, that 2013 is no, particularly special year, because 2014 will probably see Harry married off, and 2015 another baby, and so on.

It goes on, stretching endlessly forward, and whether we agree with the very idea of a royal family or not, chances are that none of us feels indifferent. Joe Hill-Gibbins’ production of Edward II, just opened at the National’s Olivier theatre, seeks to remind us of just that.

It’s a wonderfully timely production, a play that, at its heart, asks its audience to consider the monarchy, not as jewel-encrusted deities but as humans.

We saw this for ourselves as Kate Middleton walked down the steps of the Lindo Wing in July clutching her child, looking as fresh and nervous and flummoxed as any new mother, or, to use a less formal example, Harry’s bare- bum Vegas last year.

They’re just people, like us. This production kicks off with the dark, brooding eyes of monarchs through the ages, staring down from a pair of projector screens.

Already, we’re placed in a context. Yes, these events happened in the 1300s, and were dramatized by Christopher Marlowe at the end of the sixteenth century.

But think of Edward VIII’s abdication or, more recently, even the Charles-Diana-Camilla triangle. This play will always remind us: we’re not so different now, are we?

Edward II tells the story of a torn king. He’s crowned with all the pomp and splendor expected of a coronation but ‘God Save the King’ already sounds hollow, and Edward himself looks stricken.

Why? He has a feisty, beautiful wife, an heir, and loyal barons. But he is also in love, with a rakish, much-despised man named Gaveston, and never the twain shall meet when public duty and affairs of the heart are concerned.

Edward and Gaveston's 'close' relationship bodes ill for the kingdom

The text itself is simple in its premise: can Edward reconcile his kingdom, his power, with his lover? The answer, as you might expect, is no. The court quickly descends into a hot-bed of deceit and intrigue, a microcosm in which Gaveston is exiled, recalled, exiled again, and ultimately killed.

What I’d forgotten since studying it at university, and what this production did well to bring out, is the essential humour of a play traditionally read as a ‘lamentable tragedie’.

Hill-Gibbins spots the puns, the double entendres, the constant winks hidden in lines of otherwise sombre prose. It’s this comedic effect that provides the show with some of its best moments.

Kyle Soller was impressive as Gaveston, a skinny-jean-clad, leather-jacketed American who isn’t interested in the lashings of gold Edward is prepared to bestow on his favourite.

No, Gaveston wants to get drunk and slump on Edward’s throne, he wants to tease the bishops and climb over all the haughtiness of the English crown.

Soller is wonderfully irreverent, juxtaposing with John Heffernan’s boyish impressionability, which only deepens as the play progresses, and is really something to behold. Vanessa Kirby also does well as Queen Isabella, the rejected wife who seeks solace in a bottle of Cava and a pack of Marlboros.

Again, her performance improved, particularly in the second half, when the tongue-in-cheek naughtiness of her actions were revealed to have dire consequences.

Lizzie Clachan’s set oscillates between the thoroughly-modern and the traditional, though locates itself more firmly in the former.

The screens, raised high above the audience on either side, are used much as they were in the Old Vic’s Richard III, namely to provide almost Tarantino-esque ‘chapters’ instead of scenes (as in, ‘The Coronation of Edward II’, ‘The Capture of Gaveston’, etc etc).

Mainly, however, they project the goings-on of an onstage, though entirely covered ante-chamber: a handy arena for the shadier conversations, party scenes and plots which so pepper the text.

A cameraman documents what happens here, as well as on the open stage in moments of more intimate crisis. Whilst this technique was put somewhat to over-use it was nonetheless effective in conveying the sense of entrapment so central to Edward II: entrapment within marriage, within duty, within one’s own country and court.

I liked it, but it was laboured. Sprawling, all-covering plastic sheets were also a nice touch in the second half, covering the space where once the throne was stood, and serving only one purpose by the play’s conclusion: to sanitise what becomes a sort of human abattoir.

As with much Renaissance theatre, the stage is strewn with bodies by the curtain call, and as usual it’s a lack of compromise, and an inability to see through others’ eyes, which is the direct cause.

There’s an awful lot going on in this most daring of productions, but it feels like a second or even third viewing might be the only way to do it justice.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/edward-ii.

Suitable for 15yrs+ Captioned performances at 2.30pm on Sunday 29 September, and 7.30pm on Monday 14 October
.

Audio-described performances at 7.30pm on Friday 18 October, and at 2pm on Saturday 19 October.

The Saturday performance is preceded by a Touch Tour at 12.30pm Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, running to 26th October