Time to catch up on my last two theatre trips, both written by that promising Brummie William Shakespeare.

Both productions featured performances that had Must-See stamped on them but none more so than Kevin Spacey as RICHARD III - if ever there was a perfect marriage of actor and role this had to be it.This production marked the end of the highly-publicised - and pretentiously titled - Bridge Project which featured Sam Mendes directing nine plays over the past 3 years which toured the world with a yearly company of actors drawn from the UK and the US. However none of the productions I saw seemed to be that successful with some remarkably ropey performances - mostly from the Americans to be honest.

The production was stark - each scene started with the first word of the scene projected on a scrim - and had a clunky stylised air such as certain doors that enclosed the playing space being marked with a X as another of Richard's victims bit the dust - we were treated to Gloucester being graphically drowned while others made do with just having their eyes closed by another company member. All very odd. As with previous Bridge productions there were some remarkably dodgy performances - the prime suspects here were Chandler Williams as a Clarence who seemed to be channelling a bad Kirk Douglas impersonator, Michael Rudko as a dull Lord Stanley and Nathan Darrow as a dreary Henry, Earl of Richmond.

There were no particularly exciting male performers in the cast so let's move on to Spacey. As much as I enjoyed him I must admit that afterwards I felt a bit becalmed as he gave exactly the performance that I was expecting. The slithery delivery, the barnstorming theatricality, the glittering ambiguity... it was all there. To be honest though, nothing he did surprised me or made me see a hidden dimension to his character.

I must say Spacey's physicality was impressive with his twisted gait and calipered leg and, with his constant scampering around the stage, he had boundless energy.

In both acts Mendes and Spacey concocted indelible stage moments: in Buckingham's stage-managed attempt to 'persuade' Richard to accept the crown while he demurs to be left alone to his prayers, Mendes had him broadcast live on a tv screen seemingly shocked and tremulous to be interrupted praying, while at the same time surreptitiously pushing away the fake monks surrounding him. In the second act, as the Battle of Bosworth draws ever closer and Richard's paranoia increases he delivered his speeches in the ranting style of Gaddafi which really drove home the timelessness of the play.

His death scene - while physically impressive - rather defeated his performance. Mendes has the dead Richard hoisted aloft by his ankles, Mussolini-style, to sway above the stage while Henry delivers his speech to the glories of the Tudor age to come. All this did was to remind me of reports of Olivier's famous death scene in CORIOLANUS at Stratford in 1959 - and Olivier should never be allowed to enter people's minds when they are watching another actor play Richard III.Oddly enough, for once the women ruled the roost - Haydn Gwynne (not an actress I usually warm to) was an impassioned Queen Elizabeth, Annabel Scholey was a forlorn Lady Anne and, in the real performance of the night, Gemma Jones gave us a thrilling Queen Margaret, haunting the stage in a top coat and wild hair. Her big scene where she denounces the Yorkist Queens was, for me, the highlight of the evening.I guess any time this play is performed it will always seem to mirror whatever despot is ruling somewhere in the world but with Gaddafi shrieking his revenge in a hidden location at all those seeking to overthrow him it made this 420 year old play remarkably contemporary.

RICHARD II / AS YOU DESIRE ME

It sounds like the start of an odd love letter but it in fact heralds the fact that I have done two theatre trips with Mr. Guy Thomas in the past week.

Last Thursday was RICHARD II at the Old Vic which finally saw Kevin Spacey delivering a performance worthy of that stage's history. Although not one of the most poetic of Kings - and I think some of the speechs could have done with more introspection and less tart snittiness - he really excelled in the deposition scene where his cry of anguished frustration "I have no name" was all the more powerful for seemingly coming from nowhere. He was ably supported by Ben Mles whose Bolingbroke slide smoothly into power after his exercise in regime change in a strangely Blairite manner. There was excellent support from Julian Glover as John of Gaunt as well as Oliver Cotton and Peter Eyre.

Tonight we saw Pirandello's AS YOU DESIRE ME at the Playhouse Theatre with Kristin Scott Thomas and Bob Hoskins, slickly directed by Jonathan Kent. I had seen the film starring Greta Garbo yonks ago so knew the story - Elma is an amnesiac singer in a Berlin cabaret, one night she is followed by a man who tells her that she is in fact Lucia, the wife of an Italian count who had disappeared from their villa in WWI when she was raped and kidnapped by some German soldiers. Bored by her decadent life as a mistress to a violent writer she goes to Italy where she is greeted by the count, her aunt and uncle. 

Four months later she agrees to meet her sister who had regretfully allowed the missing woman's death certificate to be signed. However what was at the heart of that decision was who gained control of the villa, as it was part of the wife's dowry on her death it reverted to her sister. Is Lucia really Lucia or is she simply being used as a pawn? When her ex-lover Santer arrives at the villa with an insane woman who can only speak the name of the aunt the whole question of identity is blown apart.

Sadly it reads and lives in the mind better than it does on stage - at 90 minutes it still seemed padded and repetitive. However it was worth seeing for the livewire performance of Scott Thomas - almost bursting out of her slinky 30s dresses with frustration of not knowing who she is. Hoskins was strangely muted as Santer but there were memorable performances by Margaret Tyzack and John Carlisle as the woman's older relatives.