This week Samantha Blinn, Jane May, Nicholas Koy Santillo, Sam Gilroy, Ellyn Heald, Sam Gibbs & Ariana Karp examine:

• Fissures within Bolingbroke's faction
• Richard's first and second 'Aria' moments…"For god's sake, let us sit upon the ground" and "Down, down I come like glistering Phaeton" 
• Performance history of Richard II
• Power through words typically feminized versus the 'masculine' power through action 
• Cycle of ascension and descension and the balance of the two
• Systems of Elizabethan imagery working upon each other: the four elements, the five humors
• The instability of identity through language