LONDON – When British actress Adjoa Andoh read William Shakespeare’s Richard III as a child, she was struck by how he was treated.

“I’m sort of nine or 10. I was outraged in the sort of way that children get outraged about the way that Shakespeare had unfairly represented this man and had people be vile to this man because of the way he looked,” said the 60-year-old.

“As a child growing up in the Cotswolds in the 1960s, it was something I resonated with.”

Decades later, Andoh is starring in the lead role and directing her iteration of the play, set in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England, and in which Richard’s “otherness” is race rather than disability.

She is the only black actress among the cast, and rather than focus on the stereotypical evil character, she wanted to look at someone “who has been pushed and pulled in a certain way, and at a certain point goes, ‘Okay, no more of this. I will make my mark.’”

She emphasised she was not changing the language or the text of the play or playing Richard as a woman, but “doing it in this frame and through this lens”.

Andoh, whose portrayal of Richard comes to London’s Rose Theatre after a run in Liverpool, shot to global fame as Lady Danbury, the sharp-tongued doyenne of London society in Netflix period drama Bridgerton (2020 to present).

It is a role she reprises in the prequel spin-off Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, which premieres on Thursday.

Bridgerton, which is set in the competitive world of Regency-era London during the social season where marriageable youth of nobility and gentry are launched into society, was a huge hit upon its release in 2020 and won praise for its diverse cast.

Andoh said: “It’s a style of costume drama that may have swerved mightily and this has given an extra little edge to it that may draw people in a different way.” REUTERS