The show is presented in six chapters of towards 90 minutes each, knitted by such devices as having Falstaff, beloved joint protagonist of Henry IV, cheekily appear before the preceding Richard II is done. Ryan cunningly fiddles with the order of events and placement of speeches, without doing any particular disservice to Shakespeare. Yet, despite the care with which the plays have been edited and the general excellence of the performance, it’s simply too long, and the problem, as ever, is Henry VI. The young Shakespeare contributed to these three plays rather being their primary creator (who probably was Christopher Marlowe), and consequently much of the verse is inferior, the characterisations are thin and the storylines mere bloody melodramas. Henry VI essentially consumed two Player Kings chapters: a massive edit of three full-length plays, but still a drag upon the whole because it’s too burdened with the tiresome bickering of the ruling class – or what we now call politics. We tumble into the concluding Richard III, therefore, with some relief, and it’s fully worth the wait because Liam Gamble is as good a Richard as I’ve seen. Having cerebral palsy, and therefore not fully able-bodied himself, Gamble evades the cartoonish Richards that have predominated.