“King Charles III” – a play by Mike Bartlett

King Charles III by Mike Bartlett
Almeida Theatre – until 31st May 2014

– West End transfer to Wyndham’s Theatre until 31st January 2015 –

The Queen is dead. Charles is pronounced King. Labour, apparently without Ed Miliband, is in power. The Duchess of Cambridge morphs into Lady Macbeth while Prince Harry discovers scotch eggs – better together? What follows is a clever creation of a future history play, drawing on Shakespearean themes of kingship and power, and performed almost entirely in iambic pentameter. Mike Bartlett already has a strong repertoire – My Child, Cock, The Town (TV). With Charles III he shows an unconventional, but mature, development enforcing his position as one of our best living playwrights.

Irony and kingship feature throughout the play. Charles wants to be a good king. Diana’s ghost even delivers that message. Charles thinks twice about signing a privacy bill to limit the power of the press. He is encouraged to hold out by the Tory leader, in opposition, resulting in Charles falling victim to “political tongues”. When he dissolves parliament and chaos ensues the themes of power and kingship come straight out of Macbeth and King Lear as well as the actual History Plays. The ghost of Diana, as if one of the three witches, re-appears to William. However it is his wife, Kate, who takes charge and plots, Lady Macbeth style, to ensure that she will be crowned Queen alongside William. Meanwhile Prince Harry shuns kingship and seeks reality away from “sloanish fluff” with his artsy girlfriend, Jess. Throughout the play Charles is left to contemplate the dichotomy of monarchy and power: “What is power if not used to rule”. In the end he is sidelined by both sons in a scene that evokes King Lear when the king is dealing with his daughters, Goneril and Regan.

The cast, headed by Tim Pigott-Smith as Charles, is spot on and is believable without being embarrassing. Director Rupert Goold has delivered a sparkling production of Bartlett’s new work on the monarchy in Britain. A West End transfer must surely follow.