Teenage Dick (NHB Modern Plays)

A darkly comic, smashed-up retelling of Richard III, Shakespeare's classic tale about the lust for power, Teenage Dick reimagines the most famous disabled character of all time as a high-school outsider in junior year: the deepest winter of his discontent. Picked on because of his disability (as well as his sometimes creepily Shakespearean way of speaking), Richard is determined to have his revenge and make his name by becoming president of the senior class. But like all teenagers, and all despots, he is faced with the hardest question of all: is it better to be loved, or feared? 'Retells Shakespeare with a much-needed urgency, providing an arch reminder that the voices of the disabled have often been ignored, terrorised or shouted down from the earliest possibility... Lew's writing neatly blends Shakespearean rhetoric with everyday speech... sharp and highly enjoyable... more plays of this calibre, telling the stories they do, are very much needed and welcome to explore our own ingloriousness' - Broadway World