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

• The prison speech as the final step in the metamorphosis of Richard's character, it is one of only two soliloquies in this play.
• The character of Exton as an enigma at the end of the play. 
• The strangeness of having an action sequence at the end of the play, it is the one moment that Richard pushes through his interiority through external violence. 
• Metaphysical poetry and metaphor in Richard's prison speech
• The scene with York, Duchess of York and Aumerle…how often to we get an entire family in Shakespeare?!? 
• Ultimately the instability of identity in Richard II and how that connects to the meta-theatrical subversion of 'playing a role'

Production image from Michael Boyd's 2007 RSC production. Jonathan Slinger as Richard II in a literal cleansing shower of dust.