Emily Carding’s a charming and charismatic loon, wielding all the weapons in the narcissistic coercive controller’s armoury
Adapted from Shakespeare’s Richard III by Emily Carding and Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir
Directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir
Sweet Venues’ brand new venue, the tiny and intimate Yellow Book.
Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly, and in we willingly go, our smiling tactile host gently gathering us in, seating, casting and labelling us ready for disposal.
As Richard, Emily Carding’s a charming and charismatic loon, wielding all the weapons in the narcissistic coercive controller’s armoury. Love-bombing Lady Anne, grooming and sending out the flying monkeys to spread the rumours and do the dirty work, touches of poor-me DARVO and gaslighting – it was all laid out here, centuries ago.
The words are Shakepeare’s, weaving the essential moments together, Carding slipping into assured asides, responding and reacting to the audience in the moment, and it’s fitting how grimly funny it often is.
The simple modern dress, the red slash of a tie, the tight black suit for always painful and rigidly controlled movement, is a subtle representation of Richard’s cheated of feature, deformed, unfinish’d condition, a mobile a messenger for incoming news and a means of issuing orders.
This Richard has a little list, and we’re all on it. We’re mesmerised, the huge eyes and the voice a persuasive weapon, a ‘trust in me’ croon, soft and seductive, until of COURSE this is how it’s going to be and we’re all complicit in the sophisticated carnage.
The bottled spider pounces and instead of a cocoon we have a new label. Dead.
In the face of such reasonable, hypnotic tenderness, you’ll find yourself doing as the king bids you on this climb up to the crown, as the mood swoops from crowing elation to horror and stricken despair to the inevitable crash.
It’s a must-see must-do experience.
Philippa Hammond May 2024