WHAT sport could have been had if York Theatre Royal had mounted this co-production with the Leicester Curve rather than a rival East Midlands theatre, the Nottingham Playhouse, given the stand-off over the resurrected Yorkist king’s final resting place.

That said, Shakespeare had done a pretty good job of burying Richard III’s reputation for good with his Tudor-spun hatchet job.

Director Loveday Ingram plays to the play and not to the present situation that overshadows it, although the discovery of the Crookback’s bones in a Leicester car park has led to a more accurate physical representation of Richard, still with a hunchback and his left hand in a glove but none of that dragging-his-leg nonsense. His death scene too is now a heightened theatrical representation of the fatal blows he received on Bosworth Field.

Past and present come together in this production, just as they have in the on-going burial debate. Simon Higlett’s design combines a multitude of old gravestones for the walls and floor with the multi-media technology of projections (most spectacularly for Clarence’s death by drowning), while the costumes travel through the ages.

On the one hand, the women are dressed in the (first) Elizabethan mode; on the other, the Bosworth Field battle is conducted in 21st century police riot gear and Milo Twomey’s fashionably bearded Buckingham wouldn’t look out of place on a London catwalk.

Ian Bartholomew’s Richard III straddles the two, relishing and swishing his regal robes in one scene, but booted and suited for modern warfare later.

The link goes deeper than mere clothing: Ingram is holding up Richard III as a mirror to today’s brand of power-crazed, silver-tongued political monsters.

Bartholomew, Ingram’s husband incidentally, is outwardly an unusual choice for Richard; looking rather closer in age to Prince Charles than the real Richard III who assumed the throne in his early 30s. Historical accuracy can take a hike – well, it already has, thanks to the Bard – because having an older Richard both distinguishes him from Shakespeare’s other murderous king, the younger Macbeth, and adds to Richard’s desperation to acquire the top job.

This Richard has lived, being withered inside as much as out and mentally as well as physically twisted, hence the rising tide of paranoia, the undeniable charm of the bad boy and black humour that is played off the audience in the tradition of theatrical villainy.

Bartholomew’s voice of experience also ensures he extracts the max from Richard’s monologues, directed to the audience as if to a political rally, while Siobhan McCarthy’s Queen Elizabeth and Nyashi Hatendi’s Richmond stand out.

Ingram’s direction exudes confidence in the power of modern theatre, with supremely clear storytelling to go with the high-tech panache, and Drew Baumohl’s sound designs take this thrilling production further into film territory. Even a horse neighs on the battlefield.

Richard III, York Theatre Royal/ Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company, at York Theatre Royal until November 30. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk