Out of his depth as a tragedy unfolds around him: say what you like about Eton College’s 1982 production of Richard III, but it certainly gave Boris Johnson a taste of what was to come. That’s the point made, more than once, by Adam Meggido’s Boris the Third, which majors in the dramatic irony of Johnson’s teenage behaviour foreshadowing that of his adult self. He’s throwing a party against dorm rules. He’s issuing a defence of cakeism. He’s calling a black person a “piccaninny”. “Youth’s a stuff will not endure,” as Shakespeare wrote elsewhere – but this young Boris is just the mature (OK, wrong word) version in stripy trousers.
Harry Kershaw plays the pre-PM here, and distinguishes himself: the impersonation is persuasive, as this blond-mopped narcissist sweet-talks co-star Katie (Poppy Winter), promises and fails ever to learn his lines, and delivers self-regarding asides to the audience. The action unfolds first in rehearsal, where the Lady Anne scene (“Was ever woman in this humour wooed?”) parallels Johnson bamboozling his girlfriend into overlooking another infidelity. Later, we see the play-within-the-play, staged – a little strenuously – as a farce with Johnson-as-Richard confusing the scenes, dodging the swinging sword of his betrayed lover, and on the Benny Hill-style run from a vengeful marine.
