Simon Godwin’s production of Richard II opens with an apt, if unscripted, prologue: the coronation of a ten-year-old king, frail and golden-headed, whose main challenge is not the acceptance of a crown but the giving up of his toy horse. There follows a classic revolving-door metamorphosis from the pre-pubescent monarch to our adult lead Charles Edwards wearing a larger version of the same coronation gown, which now suggests a saintly surplice, a faux-austere fashion statement and a nursery smock all at once.

With the king’s Peter-Panish inner tensions thus established, the story proper can begin: that of a charming, creative and intelligent man ill-suited to kingship, whose frailty, venality and self-absorption creates his downfall at the hands of the hot-blooded yet pragmatic Henry Bolingbroke (David Sturzaker) more or less inevitable.

For all the stately metaphysics of the language and the formality of its early set-piece scenes, this Richard II feels full of action. The snarling face-off between Bolingbroke and Mowbray (Oliver Boot) is surpassed in nastiness by the former’s brutal execution of Richard’s cheerleaders-in-chief, Bushy and Green. The play’s combustive chemistry is enhanced to great effect by the choice of costume: black, toughened leather and sweat-streaked hair for team Bolingbroke; gleaming Italian silks for the effete, ineffectual court flatterers.

As Richard, Charles Edwards is extraordinary. Part faded matinee idol, part F. Scott Fitzgerald and part Liberace (with an unsettling dash of Tony Blair), he appears at one point in an empire-waisted damask gown with capped sleeves. He invites us to laugh at, despise, but also to love Richard for his flaws, most notably his self-delusion (because, in these times of complacency, comfort and so-called “peace”, those flaws are ours). It is the throwing off of the latter which turns a history play into a tragedy, and anoints Richard as the hero over Bolingbroke.

The cast are uniformly good, providing several stand-out moments. William Gaunt (as John of Gaunt) keeps his “Sceptred Isle” speech low-key, thereby adding extra force to his deathbed tirade at Richard. The comedy of the “garden scene” is nicely realised, as is the domestic turmoil of the Duke and Duchess of York upon discovering Aumerle’s last-ditch plot against Bolingbroke (great performances from William Chubb, Sarah Woodward and Graham Butler). Anneika Rose is especially good as Queen Isabel, refusing to share in her husband’s insouciance as rebellion looms, and emerging stronger for it.

An excellent production and well worth the trip.