If being Dr Who, magically controlling Virgin TV or being referred to by Billy Piper as David Teninch isn’t enough to keep your ego above the average level of buoyancy then getting to star in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Richard II at the Barbican should just about do it for David Tennant for the next year or so.
Set to open on the 9th December 2013, running through until the 25th January 2014, tickets for the performance of Shakespeare’s classic are now available from the Barbican. Prices range from £10 to £55 with 30 stalls tickets released for sale on the day of the performance at just £10 each and another 10 at £5 each for 16-25 year olds, making the performances accessible to most budgets.
David Tennant is inevitably playing King Richard II with the help of Oliver Ford Davies as the Duke of York, Nigel Lindsay as Bolingbrook and Michael Pennington as the King’s uncle, John of Gaunt. The production will be directed by the RSC’s Artistic Director, Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, with lighting from Tim Mitchell and music from Paul Englishby.
The part sees Tennant continue his stage career and in particular his Shakespearean credentials following on from 2008’s Hamlet at the Courtyard in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was followed up with the TV movie in 2009 on BBC2.
Shakespeare’s historical play Richard II sees the king courting controversy and enemies in the final two years of his life. With Richard’s cousin, Lord Henry Bolingbroke, dissatisfied at the King’s decision to take his father John of Gaunt’s land the two come to a head in a series of events that will shape the following hundred years and more of British history.
The play is the first of four that chronologically follow on from the brutal closing two years of Richard’s reign going through into the era of Bolingbroke’s ascendency and Kingship in Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 before closing on Henry V’s reign. The Barbican’s production of Richard II will be the start of a new series of the so called Henriad under the direction of Doran, bringing Shakespeare’s historic plays to London over the next few seasons.
David Tennant has also been confirmed to return to the Dr Who TV series in the 50th Anniversary special later in 2013.
