New production gives Richard III a twist

London

YOU know these are scary times when Richard III starts to look like real life. Audiences for the Almeida Theater's popular revival of Shakespeare's study of a megalomaniac who plunges his country into civil war may find themselves thinking, "But I know this story, and it's happening right now."

This rush of too-close-for-comfort deja vu doesn't come from the usual inferences that theatregoers have been encouraged to draw in recent years from Richard III, with its amoral title tyrant bringing to mind past and present dictators of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

In Rupert Goold's tightly focused new production - which stars a blood-freezing Ralph Fiennes and a beautifully battered Vanessa Redgrave - it's not so much Richard who evokes shudders of amused and uneasy recognition but the world of fickle alliances and self-serving powermongers he inhabits. Richard and hi…