And so ends the House of Lancaster. The victorious Yorks make a happy group around the throne and look forward to peace and merrymaking. But oh dear, look who’s holding the baby – it’s uncle Richard.

No wonder the audience shouted for more.

The Globe’s landgrab of Shakespeare from the highbrow is now complete. This thrilling scramble for the English throne had all the pace and suspense of The Sopranos, while the French court was pure pantomime.

Nick Bagnall’s utterly enthralling production really worked the contrasts in this final chapter. The rage and depravity of war was all there in the voice of Mary Doherty’s ruthless Queen Margaret, the fear and disillusionment all in Graham Butler’s tenderly nuanced Henry, a cornered dove in a vicious boil of hawks.

Any lull in the fighting was a moment for reflection or revelation, the change in tempo allowing us to take stock not only of the play’s rapid action but of the breadth of this production’s achievement.

It’s not often a newspaper sends readers on to a battlefield, but that is exactly where you should be (Tewkesbury, St Albans and Barnet in August) to catch this magnificent event in all its historic and gory glory.