Kenneth Hurren, Mail on Sunday (12/4/88)

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For a definition of blazing Shakespearean stardom, you would do well to start here: Jacobi takes Richard II not so much as the traditional poet king but rather as the actor king, a man forever testing his own theatricality against those around him, hoping almost to the last that yet another great speech might get him out of prison and back to his usurped throne. Jacobi's command of the verse, his ability to switch from gay despot to defeated husband within a few dozen lines, is immensely impressive and powerful.

Sheridan Morley, Punch (12/16/88)

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Whereas once we flocked to the Barbican to see the finest Shakespeare in London, the Phoenix Theatre now seems to be the place to pay homage to the Bard. First came Crown Prince Kenneth of Branagh with his retinue of fresh faced followers. Now arrives King Derek of all Jacobi with as goodly a look of majesty as we poor, starving subjects have been allowed to gaze upon these many seasons past. What doth this portend? Well, for one thing, it means that the RSC must quickly build on the good work of its Stratford Plantagenent's production If the despised commercial theatre is not to steal its crown and bring the spectre of further erosion to the subsidised sector. Mr. Jacobi's company is, to a man and woman, the caliber we used to take for granted at the RSC's high noon. He himself sits among the great interpreters of this role. When we first meet him it is plain that the notion of anyone questioning his absolute authority has simply never occurred to him; in the imperious disdain is indeed the stamp of the last King of England to hold his throne in unbroken succession from the Conqueror. What Jacobi goes on to convey so splendidly is the erratic whim of iron which is the seed of his destruction and the real core of his tragedy. Yet, surrounded by his enemies in Flint Castle, he can summon up such awesome spirit of immovable majesty, you doubt the need of any army to defend him. In the next minute he is spinning, again, with self doubt. He was a king who never learned to be a man.

Jack Tinker, Daily Mail (12/11/88)

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If all the world's a stage then Derek Jacobi's Richard II is a star player, self-indulgently wearing his kingship on his sleeves. With theatrical assurance, his Richard wields authority like a petulant primadonna who flirts with his court of flatterers and plays little power games to keep them in their place. It is an extraordinary performance in which Jacobi manages to be both extravagantly actorish and totally convincing--knitting Richard's ruthlessness with his cowardice, he displays a man who hides his emotional frailty behind a thin veneer of dramatic bravura. Jacobi is enthralling, and his mood changes are abrupt, brutal and devastating.

Helen Rose, Time Out (12/7/88)

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Derek Jacobi's Richard II is a performance of enormous intelligence and diversity, arrogance and scorn, taking us through the long speeches of discovery and introspection with an emotional spontaneity that never loses the intellectual argument of the overall line. This is the best performance of the role I have seen in 20 years. Clifford Williams' production is well-spoken and clear. More of all these things, I hope, when "Richard III" joins it in repertory next month. Meanwhile, see Jacobi.

Michael Ratcliffe, Observer (12/4/88)

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Clifford Williams has assembled a brilliant cast in which Malcolm Tierney's York and Robert Eddison's Gaunt are the brightest satellites to Derek Jacobi's extraordinary Richard. From camp golden boy through raging autocrat to impoverished--but newly noble--prisoner, Jacobi extracts maximum variety from this most taxing and fascinating role. The nature of power, the endless intermingling of good and evil in the same soul, the elusiveness of princely qualities, the certainty that one person's truth is another's heinous defamation, are all intricately assembled here. Close your eye and listen.

Ros Asquith, City Limits (12/8/88)

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Jacobi takes on Richard as of right. He finds more in the role than anyone in recent memory. He charts the journey of a man exchanging trappings for knowledge, the visibility of a monarch for the anonymity of a slave. The great trick Jacobi plays is to preserve the two states in a double focus. On learning that the Welsh have fled because he is reported dead, his crackling rage subsides immediately to a strongly imagined idea of corporeal transience. He remains a king but in curious absentia. These great third act speeches of transition are at the center of his decline. And I shall remember his plea to be a mockery king of snow that summarises the self-immolating tendencies of this tear-sodden egotist.

Michael Coveney, Financial Times (11/29/88)

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Derek Jacobi brings to the role a dimension of unbending pride and steely arrogance. Richard is not so much a villain as a bungler. Yet Jacobi's Richard is never humbled by any of the disastrous steps he takes. "We were not born to sue but to command," he tells his recalcitrant nobles. Only when he realises that the odds against him are too great does he hand over his crown to Bolingbroke but with the crushed, tearful dignity of a man who feels that it was an unkind fate rather than his own weakness that caused his downfall. Whether he is wielding imperious authority, baying with hysterical frenzy, or sighing with mournful introspection about the lot of kings, Jacobi hypnotises his audience with the power and diversity of a great performance.

Milton Shulman, Evening Standard (11/29/88)

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At the Phoenix Theatre, Clifford William's excellent production is packing them in. The main attraction is Derek Jacobi as Richard. The interpretation is unusual in its sardonic, mood-switching variety; the element of ineffectual dreaminess often associated with the part is hardly in evident. It is, in any case, a stage-commanding performance.

Christopher Edwards, The Spectator (12/10/88)

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Shakespeare focuses, in "Richard II", on the complex identity crisis caused by kingship. There was once a tendency in productions to over-sentimentalise Richard by intimating that, while he may well be a political disaster area, he can at least put on a lovely floor show. One of the many virtues of Derek Jacobi's fine performance is that it lets you see that this won't really wash. A compulsive, petulant up-stager, his Richard emphasises how, far from enhancing the mystique of ritual, the king continually debases it, disrupting its solemn rhythms in the interest of producing tacky, theatrical effects. There is, for instance, the provokingly foppish casualness with which he throws down his sceptre in order to bring to an end (just as it is about to begin) the elaborate chivalric combat between Bolingbroke and Mowbray. The little self-satisfied smile that plays on Jacobi's lips tells you how much he has enjoyed engineering this literally show-stopping anti-climax. More significantly, there is his carefully contrived attempt to eclipse Bolingbroke in the deposition scene. Handing the usurper the crown, Jacobi insolently inverts it and won't let go. He unseats himself by the paradoxically glamorising strategy of scaling the steps up to the high-rise Gothic throne and making a lofty announcement. Only a king, he implies pertly, can deconsecrate a king, without pausing to reflect that this showy point-scoring is politically futile. And, indeed, when Bolingbroke announces his own coronation, Richard collapses in shock. But Jacobi doesn't simply irritate. Clinging frantically to the rotten rope of his gigantic mood swings---between little boy lachrimosity and trenchant adult sarcasm; from precious tittering with his effete fan club to bellowing last-shreds-of-dignity lustre---he never lets you forget the psychological desperation behind all this attention-seeking.

Paul Taylor, The Independent (11/30/88)

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Mr. Jacobi's performance is miles away from the traditional concept of Richard as a dandified aesthete. It is a stirringly unsympathetic reading from an actor whose natural asset is charm. But what Mr. Jacobi now possesses, to a greater degree than almost any of his contemporaries, is the Continental actor's ability to change emotional gear in a split second. There is a classic example In the deposition scene where Richard is confronted with a catalogue of his crimes. "Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see" is rendered with a heart-wrenching pathos. Within a moment, Mr. Jacobi turns to a wild, intemperate anger with the treacherous court, and then to a moody reflectiveness on his own participation in his downfall. It is all there in Shakespeare's lines; what is rare is to see an actor with that capacity to turn on a sixpence.

Michael Billington, The Guardian (11/30/88)