For all its faults, King Charles III earns enormous credit for its scale and ambition, and the performances in the touring version are universally superb.
The result is a near theatrical triumph.
Book-ended by Jocelyn Pook's exquisite choral-based score, the ending may look and sound like triumph, but this is actually a play in mourning for kingdoms yet to come.
Apart from Powell’s sympathetic, if deluded, figurehead, it is impossible to get too het up about any of them, while the Shakespeareanisms also just add to the strangeness of it.
As a chillingly futuristic drama about the Royal Family, Mike Bartlett has written an eloquent, elegiac and thought-provoking theatrical masterpiece.
The play is strongest in its thought-provoking qualities.
There’s definite merit in this treatment of the subject, and who is to say history won’t bear out some of the suppositions made, but the play seems reluctant to commit fully in a number of ways.
The play suffers so hugely from the paper-thin personalities of its characters and the painting-by-numbers plot that the danger and sadness of this clash never makes an emotional impact.
The play is often a little daft, but always interesting and timely; and if you see it, you’ll find you have plenty to argue about on the way home – notably what should happen to the ancient institution the Queen has nurtured with such care, once she is gone.
What if Prince Charles became King, Mike Barlett's play asks
Mike Bartlett--King Charles III
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from Monday November 16, 2015, until Saturday November 21, 2015. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/festival
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