Richard III should only be played by a disabled actor – anything else is insulting

When it comes to disability, Shakespeare’s Globe has a blind spot, writes James Moore – and it’s not just the ‘winter of our discontent’, it’s a full-blown, year-round insult

Michelle Terry as Richard III – who suffered from severe scoliosis (Shakespeare’s Globe)

Shakespeare’s Globe has made a big show of turning the bard “woke”. It has colour-blind casting, even gender-blind casting – and it’s not shy of a controversy or two.

So, in casting a woman in the lead role of Richard III – by way of artistic director Michelle Terry – the famous playhouse must have thought it was on to a blinder. “Actually,” you can imagine its defiant team espousing: “for many years, Shakespeare’s female roles were actively handed over to adolescent boys, because women weren’t allowed to tread the boards! So why not give her a shot at the villainous monarch who describes himself as “cheated of feature” and “deformed, unfinish’d”...?”

I see their point – as Richard III himself says (act one, scene three): “Since every Jack became a gentleman; There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.”

So far, so splendid. But while there’s nothing wrong with the titular role being played by a woman, there is a lot wrong, actually, with the blind spot Shakespeare’s Globe seems to have when it comes to recognising disabilities.

Richard III suffered from severe scoliosis, as was revealed when his skeleton was discovered beneath a car park in 2012. Which means... that the disability mocked by the bard? Terry doesn’t have it. She doesn’t experience it. No one will ever have called her the “diffused infection of a (wo)man” . Nor a “bottled spider”. Nor a “foul hunch-backed toad”. Those jibes are a bit more decorous than the “wheelchair w****r””, which was hurled at me on my way home from the tube station, recently. But you’d expect the bard to come up with something more creative.

And while some might applaud Terry for realising the adage of “the show must go on” (she has vowed not to “alter [her] physicality”, despite the backlash) – and for the statement the Globe has put out, calling Richard III “an iconic disabled figure” – I simply don’t understand why they couldn’t have just employed a disabled actor to do it.

Other forward-thinking productions have in recent years cast disabled actors in lead roles and so added vital nuance and context – not to mention the welcome side-effect of jabbing at the audience and making them think. It is an opportunity. There is, today – unlike in 1471, when Richard III was set – a real chance to redress the balance.

And while this kind of controversy isn’t new – there have been similar issues in casting non-Jewish actors in the role of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice – the Globe, in my opinion, should know better. It prides itself on being progressive, but this proves it is only skin-deep. It seems performative. Does disability even matter?

The standard counter to my complaint (which I’ve heard from people who also make a fuss about how “right on” they are) is that this is all about “acting”. “Actors play roles,” they say. “It’s what they do – Jessie Buckley doesn’t really have a starcrossed lover who happens to be one of her family’s bitter enemies! She’s playing a role – as Juliet! Doh! And if someone chooses to “crip up” to play an “inspirational’ disabled character because they fancy a shot at an Olivier Award, it’s exactly the same thing! What’s the problem?”

I’ll tell you exactly what the problem is: it’s that disabled actors rarely get the chance to play any sort of role on stage. And so, us disabled consumers of culture rarely (if ever) see ourselves on stage or screen. I’ve spoken to disabled performers who have steam coming out of their ears because of the number of times they have been approached to serve as “consultants” to help able-bodied stars look “authentic”.

“Cripping up” is wildly offensive. And I find Terry’s statement equally offensive: “I understand that this feels like a missed opportunity for a disabled artist to play a disabled character on a major UK stage, but it will come around again.”

Will it? Can we be confident of that? I’m not.

How is it that a great creative space like the Globe fails in comparison, as an employer, to Sainsbury’s? The supermarket giant is far more alive to the potential of disabled employees – at least so far as its “careers with disabilities” scheme is concerned.

The group is listed as one of the 10 “most friendly disabled employers” – as is Network Rail (though I’m not entirely sure how, seeing as getting on and off trains often turns into a Shakespearean tragedy for those of us with impairments).

My family went to the Globe this summer – not without a certain amount of trepidation. We’d not been since the road accident that mucked up my body. Even before that, we’d found its productions hit or miss. But we were impressed with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Our daughter enjoyed it and the access arrangements and helpfulness of the staff there were pretty good.

I won’t be back this summer. Michelle Terry has flipped the bird to disabled Britain and made the Globe look as ableist as the bard’s Elizabethan audiences, with views that reflect those of the time in which Richard III is set. I intend to respond in kind.