Adjoa Andoh and Lynette Linton will co-direct an all women of colour cast in a post Empire reflection on what it means to be British in the light of the Windrush anniversary and as we prepare to leave the European Union on 29 March. As we play our part in defining a nation’s history and we become the shoulders on which future generations will stand, Shakespeare asks us to consider the destiny that we might be shaping for our ‘scepter’d isle’.
Richard II was hugely controversial when it was first written and performed. The play is as poignant and potent now as it ever was and the questions it poses strike us afresh today with remarkable immediacy.
Richard II will mark the beginning of the Globe’s cycle of Shakespeare’s History plays. On the Shoulders of Ghosts runs February – April 2019 and includes Edward II, Richard II and After Edward.
Beset by problems at home and abroad, a capricious king is forced to relinquish his ‘hollow crown’. As his supporters abandon him and his power trickles away, Richard reflects with startling eloquence on the disintegration of his status and identity.