King Charles III

Theatre Royal Brighton, New Road, Monday, February 8, to Saturday, February 13

“IF anyone else had come to me with this I would have thought it was a terrible idea. But I knew Mike would do it with integrity.”

It’s not hard to see why director Rupert Goold would have been a little cautious about taking on a Shakespeare-style history play based around an imagined modern day constitutional crisis.

But it also shows his faith in playwright Mike Bartlett – which was proved right when King Charles III won an Olivier Award for 2015’s best new play.

Having started life at Goold’s Almeida Theatre and later on the West End at the Wyndham’s Theatre, the blank verse satire is now both on Broadway and on tour, taking in Theatre Royal Brighton next week.

It is set in an alternative history, where the Queen has just died and her son Charles has taken the throne.

But when he is asked to pass a law which would limit the freedom of the press he refuses – sending the system into meltdown.

“The reason the play will go down in history as a great play is because all the characters act with complete integrity,” says Goold. “A lot of films and plays are based on good people meeting bad people. But great dramas are about people with strong beliefs meeting people with strong beliefs and being in conflict.”

The play was penned during the Leveson Inquiry. Goold admits it might not be such a hot topic today, but he feels a free press is essential.

“Charles is defending the thing that you might expect him to most deplore,” he says.

“But if you look at a recent news story like the Litvinenko Polonium poisoning and compare what is allowed to be said about it in Russia it’s great we have a robust press.

“But what happened with Milly Dowler [when the News Of The World hacked the then missing girl’s mobile phone] ask what the limits are of that.”

He believes the play touches on a lot of other controversial topics – including the rise of UKIP and the upcoming European referendum.

“We are in a really complicated and fascinating moment about British identity and the Royal Family,” he says, pointing to the nature of British identity and what defines it.

“Is it our long history, the Royal Family, Shakespeare, cultural institutions? The play looks at all of those questions.”

It has been interesting to see how the play was received in New York too – not least because of the different impressions the UK and the US have of Prince Charles.

“By and large here Prince Charles is seen as a broadly influential figure in British life,” says Goold. “He has principles, he loves his sons and has been through a hard time. In the US he’s seen as the man who rejected Lady Diana. He’s treated as a much more problematic figure.

“The US is a republic, they fought off Royal influence. But if you look at Barack Obama trying to pass gun laws and banking reform as almost a single figure versus the Senate and the House Of Representatives you can see him as an individual trying to do the right thing. He has power, but what can he achieve?”

King Charles III is written in the internet age, but Bartlett was keen to make it an alternative reality rather than reflect what was going on in politics at the time.

“We did talk about whether the Prime Minister should be David Cameron and the opposition should be Ed Miliband,” says Goold. “Instead we had a Blairite Prime Minister and a socialist firebrand. The tweaks we are making to those characters are more in the playing style than the text.”

At the heart of the play is the gripping story – and Goold was keen to keep that central to the production.

“It’s a play about family,” says Goold comparing it to an Arthur Miller play.

“A lot of my work has been quite visual or high tech. I wanted to make this about character and language.”

He is pleased to have Robert Powell in the central role for the tour – taking over from Tim Pigott-Smith – because of his hero quality.

“He has a princeliness,” he says. “He is very sympathetic in his portrayal. He has played Jesus after all.”

Starts 7.45pm, 2.30pm matinees Thurs and Sat, tickets from £15. Call 08448 717650.