‘There’s a truth to it’: RSC casts disabled actor as Richard III

Arthur Hughes: ‘When Richard is played by actors who are able bodied, there’s an issue of how to portray the disability, how to wear this costume.’ Photograph: Hugo Glendinning

He is one of Shakespeare’s most reviled characters, distinguished by his “deformed, unfinish’d” figure. Now, for the first time, the Royal Shakespeare Company has cast a disabled actor in the title role of Richard III in a new production opening later this year.

For Arthur Hughes, it is a “dream come true” although his first reaction to being cast as the 15th-century king of England was disbelief. “It’s a part I’ve always wanted to play, it’s a very complex role, and it’s the biggest thing I’ve done,” said Hughes, 30.