The first thing to say is that Jamie bought me brunch, and Bea talked about an amazing article she’d read the previous week in Varsity – which was written by yours truly. So I think we can safely say that they are both excellent human beings. Jamie had a boyish energy as he talked about the play whilst cheerfully attacking a plate loaded high with brunch. The production was unusual for two reasons, he informed me: its location at Emmanuel Chapel, and its all-female cast. The location wasn’t without its challenges. “When you’re in the ADC the audience is all in one place, but in the chapel you have a central avenue and the audience is facing in. Creating distance is actually so much more powerful, because it becomes like a tennis match. You’re looking between the actors, from here to there, and you don’t have a chance to get everybody in one in a TV-screen way. Above all it’s really nice to be working in a space where all of the grandeur has been created by the inherent architecture. Having a beautiful building which has a black-and-white marble floor and a beautiful glass chandelier, lit by candles, it’s so exciting.”

I was curious about the decision to have an all-female cast. Jamie shrugged as he tucked into his sausage. “In all honesty, it just so happened that when I was thinking about which actors that I wanted to play Richard and Bolingbroke, I thought that they would be best played by female actors. And then there are so many male characters in that play that I thought it would dominate the narrative, the idea of these women surrounded by men. It wasn’t what I wanted for this. So we used an all-female cast. It’s not women playing men, it just happens to be a world in which everyone is a woman. In terms of what has been thrown up it’s been very interesting. “It suddenly becomes much less like a macho display of masculinity and military might, and much more about the language - much more beautiful and softer.”

“I would say it’s androgynous,” Bea chimed in, while Jamie looked dubiously at her. She frowned at him. “Yeah, it’s androgynous. It’s about the poetry of the lines, and Richard’s fall – which is better for the country, but for the individual is utterly heartbreaking. That’s not about gender, so I don’t know that it makes a difference. As Jamie said, we’re not women playing men, but we’re not women playing women either. We’re politicians, and royals, and you can’t assign a gender to that.

“The costumes are going to be gowns, quite ethereal, so as women we’re still going to look quite feminine. But then you have the language and the politics of it all, which can make it sound masculine. And that’s fine. It can be both.” I can imagine Bea as Richard. There’s something quietly steely about her. I suggest that Shakespearean history plays are dull. They both look faintly incredulous. Bea recovers from her shock first. “The language…Richard II is just so beautiful. Working on it now I may even say it’s my favourite Shakespeare play.”

Jamie joins in enthusiastically. “It’s an interesting play to watch because the history side is there, but it’s not about that. What I like about the play is that every single character thinks that what they are doing is right. There is no evil character. It’s incredibly reductive if you think about it in terms of ‘Richard is evil’ or ‘Bolingbroke is evil’. There are so many interesting characters who all have very particular aims, and that’s what the audience can enjoy, and will make them realise that history plays aren’t cut off from their knowledge. I have a friend who always says ‘Shakespeare didn’t write issues, he wrote themes’, in this incredibly grandiose way. I think that’s a nice way of looking at it. Everyone latches onto what appeals to them.

If everyone comes out thinking the same thing, it’s didactic, propaganda-based theatre. If people enjoy it and feel engaged then that’s the main thing. With Shakespeare, it’s not just about reinterpreting it, it’s about finding an interesting angle. The play isn’t a historical artefact or museum piece. You’re trying to do it for your time, finding how this play speaks to us now.”

I ask whether they like Richard. They squirm. “I definitely think he’s a lot of fun to be around when he’s not ‘kinging’” says Bea slowly. “He has a circle of friends who hang around with him not just because he’s the king, but because he’s such an interesting, flowery, poetic person. But as soon as he has to do important things, the things that matter in politics, he becomes a petulant child. He’s just not suited to reign England.” Jamie is less sympathetic: “He’s an absolute basket case. He’s incredibly arrogant, he’s incredibly brash, he’s dismissive and cruel, and you don’t really feel sorry for him. It’s only when everything falls out of place and you see that he’s only human that you sympathise. He never should have been in that position, where a crown is determined purely by birth. It’s a fascinating portrayal of an incredibly arrogant person who manufactures his own downfall.”

“Yasmin actually came up with an alternative title,” Bea interjects, pulling out her phone to show me. “It was really fitting. Ah, here it is. ‘Frippery: Or how to lose friends and alienate people’. It works, right?”