Yet when he challenges Richard – in this case, by training a massive field gun on the theatre’s balcony where Bailey stands spotlit in a white shift – he becomes a traitor. Richard, meanwhile, is transformed through grief over the loss of his kingdom into a kind of Christ figure, a metamorphosis Bailey achieves with great skill. As Hytner has said, he speaks Shakespeare’s verse as if born to it.
Richard II at the Bridge Theatre review: Jonathan Bailey is electric as the flawed king
