"John, John, bad King John/Shamed the throne that he sat on," was Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon's observation on England's most unloved king in their poetic survey of the monarchy. Shakespeare's view was more equivocal, and this partly accounts for why King John is regarded as a lesser work and seldom staged. It is hard to get involved in a play in which none of the characters are finely drawn, and the main character is portrayed as neither good nor bad, hero nor villain. Where's the beef or the drama in that?
Director Gregory Doran finds it in this crisp production by taking a distinctly satirical take on the play. He casts the rubber-faced, bandy-legged Guy Henry as the comically ineffectual king. This John, at war with France and his own barons, is out of his depth in a world where everyone is playing a game of political expediency and spin rather more cleverly than he is.
Over the past five years, productions of classic plays that attempt to draw parallels with our own age of political spin have become a theatrical cliche, but here it seems entirely justified, quite beguiling. In part it is because the approach gives an interesting weight to the women in the play - Constance, the bereft mother to little Arthur, and John's niece, Blanche, a convenient pawn to be used in the Anglo-French struggle.
These women's desperate, heartfelt grief is like a piercing shaft of light in a male world of such cynical insincerity that all words and all emotions are devalued and debased. It is these women who carry the moral weight of the play, and Kelly Hunter as Constance and Victoria Duarri as Blanche play them straight and true. There are other terrific performances too, particularly Jo Stone-Fewing's smart bastard.
Doran's production falls back on some RSC cliches - lots of flag-waving - but Stephen Brimson Lewis's strikingly clean, bare design sets the tone for a evening that always knows exactly where it is going. To my mind it is a greater achievement to have made this neglected drama work in performance than some of Shakespeare's more admired plays.
· Until April 2. Box office: 020-7638 8891.
