Tim Hughes finds himself captivated by Royal Family drama King Charles III at the Oxford Playhouse

The Queen is dead. Prince Charles becomes king... but courts a constitutional crisis by sticking to his principles and refusing to play the ceremonial monarch.

It is an all-too believable scenario, and the tantalising starting point for this fabulously executed piece of theatre by Oxfordshire’s own Mike Bartlett.

This rapier-sharp dissection of Royal Family dynamics and the machinations of government is powerful, inventive and deliciously shocking. With the aid of a very basic set, and multi-tasking cast, we are taken into the heart of the Windsor dynasty, still in shock after the funeral of its matriarch but laden with expectation at the ascent, at last, of Charles – played majestically by Robert Powell (he of Jesus of Nazareth fame).

But all does not go smoothly for Albion’s new king. Determined to be more than just a ceremonial head of state, he refuses to sign an odious piece of legislation limiting the freedom of the press, bringing upon himself the wrath of a dogmatic Prime Minister, untrustworthy opposition, and a Parliament convinced he has overstepped his mark.

His principled stand is encouraged by the ghost of his late wife Diana, who urges him to be the best king we ever had, and takes him along a destructive road from which there is no return – and which also brings out the Machiavellian posturing of the family’s most glamorous, and popular, member Katherine (played with uncanny likeness in appearance, speech and mannerisms by Jennifer Bryden).

The whole thing is played out in the manner of a Shakespearean play, with elegant use of iambic pentameter. Fans of the Bard may also identify a debt to Henry IV – not least in the role of Prince Harry, played faultlessly by another look-alike, a red-headed Richard Glaves, who, in his pursuit of a commoner, the principled yet feisty art student Jess (Lucy Phelps) provides the comedy. We feel for this angst-ridden playboy, who is encouraged by the Royal Household to stick to “sloany fluff” but who yearns to live like common people. The stand-out performance is, of course, by Powell who makes a convincing Charles. He says the play is the hardest thing he has done for years.

In his towering performance of a monarch under siege he has possibly played his most impressive role ever.

It continues at the Oxford Playhouse until Saturday. oxfordplayhouse.com

5/5