Did director Dominic Cooke see the same RSC production at Stratford of Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3 as I did in 2000 that was directed by Michael Boyd? Back then the whole thing ended when the future Richard III not only kisses the baby (the son of his brother Edward IV) as Shakespeare directs, but also carries him around the stage while muttering his aside "To say the truth, so Judas kissed his master and cried "All Hail" whenas he meant all harm".
That moment at the Swan Theatre, late in the evening and at the end of seeing all three parts in one day has stuck in my memory as much as anything I have seen at the theatre. Then it was a really creepy Aidan McArdle as Richard and now it is a gruesome Benedict Cumberbatch.who talks to the camera. It brought it all back.
Dominic Cooke takes a liberty with the text for the end of Part I. Richard Plantaganet, Duke of York returns home after a succesful battle to greet his three sons, the last being the deformed Richard just seen in silhouette. Brilliant. As was Sophie Okonedo as Henry VI’s ferocious French queen Margaret.
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