Kevin Spacey weaves subtlety into his barnstorming performance as Richard III. It sometimes appears between frightening outbursts of rage and disquieting moments of control, when someone walks into his field of vision and he follows their progress like a lizard tracking its prey. The hunchbacked body, with its crippled leg, moves like a crab. The eyes have the compassion of a shark. There is, in short, something about this inhumane Richard that is not quite human.
Sam Mendes's monochrome, modern dress production delivers Shakespeare's play with the force of a rip tide. For each lucid scene the most crucial protagonist's name is projected on the set's grey walls. Murderous progress unfolds with thriller pace and with thrilling set pieces - none more breathtaking than the verbal combat between Richard and Haydn Gwynne's grieving Elizabeth.
Mendes's Bridge Project productions have certainly proved that, as Spacey once put it, American and British actors can work together without it being crap - that is, if it needed proving at all. The project's final offering, though it feels more calculated than it might, is the finest of them all.
