Kings of War - political Shakespeare / Ivo van Hove Barbican

Four hours plus interval I believe

I'm sure it will be great. Glad I booked a matinee although other issues may lead to me missing it.

Lyn Gardner's Guardian review would have encouraged me to book, if I hadn't already done so. I suppose that if you've seen others of his productions, especially Roman Tragedies, you might feel less urge to see more. But I haven't seen any previously and it sounds monumental, distinctive and exceptional.

www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/21/kings-of-war-review-shakespeare-with-shock-and-awe

Saw this this afternoon, and loved it. Barely noticed the running time of 4 hours and 40 minutes (3:30pm to 8:10pm, including one interval).

Starting with Henry V, and ending with Henry VII supplanting Richard III, the play creates a compelling sense of the cycle of human warmongering (bolstered by casting Ramsey Nasr as both Henry V and Henry VII, to complete the circle of death).

A warning to those sitting in the front row. It's freezing, as similarly recounted by Hamlet attendees on the old board, as they are still evidently pumping in cold air at the front to prevent people expiring with heat stroke at the back. I wished I had another jumper lol.

The chill carried over to the actors, all business in their suits, stalking around corridors behind the stage, followed by cameras, being televised on a big screen just below the surtitles. Ramsey Nasr's Henry V is particularly businesslike and calculating in his scheming to find the legal basis for his declaration of war on France. He sounded a lot like Tony Blair asking Alastair Campbell to conjure him up some reasons to go to war, only more reptilian, less warmblooded than Blair.

The suggestion of this production is that war and monarchy are businesses, that require some cold blooded management to function, so when Eelco Smits' pajama-wearing crybaby of a Henry VI succeeds his PR obsessed gangster CEO of a father, it's obvious the surrounding circling sharks in suits are going to eat him alive.

But it's with the rise and accession to the throne of Richard III that this production really soars, as the coldest blooded shark in the building gets to put on his fins and start consuming prey. This is the most chilling Richard III I've ever seen, and part of this is Van Hove's choice to have Richard deliver his monologues to himself in the mirror, rather than to us in the audience. This is a Richard who has no need of us, and thus sidelined, we shudder at Richard's self-obsession, and the narcissistic joy he takes at having the tools of state at his disposal, as he commits mass murder to get his way. Tellingly, in this version of Shakespeare's 5 plays, Richard is the only man to physically wear the Crown.

Hans Kesting is unforgettable as Richard, workmanlike, superior, psychopathic, then childish and celebratory, as he gets to call Putin and Obama on the phone. Kesting owned every inch of the Barbican's huge stage, as Van Hove expelled everyone but him from the space, to allow him, and him alone to swell to fill it.

This is a memorable, efficient and terrifying version of Shakespeare's stories, marred only slightly by the lack of the poetry of Shakespeare's native English. That the seat of power is most amenable to murderers and psychopaths is a truism that finds it's ultimate expression here.

4 and a half stars.

Yes, very much worth seeing. Why can't we have a UK company which is even remotely like Tonelgroep Amsterdam, with a rep of major productions of major plays and a semi-permanent acting company? And this is a brilliant way to produce Shakespeare, making the thrilling most of the distilled elements, rather than the usual UK way of staging almost every original word and then putting all the energy into trying to make it comprehensible.

Great news - having had to cancel a trip to Amsterdam specifically to see this a few years ago due to illness, very glad to have the opportunity now.