Shardlake star Arthur Hughes: 'It's amazing to see disabled people in strong, cool, sexy roles'

Arthur Hughes, one of Britain’s most promising young actors, knows a thing or two about baddies after playing Richard III on stage. Indeed, he was the first disabled actor to play the role at Royal Shakespeare Company.

Hughes may be the hero of the glossy new Tudor murder mystery Shardlake, which comes to Disney+ today, but he has been admiring the work of co-star Sean Bean on the show. “Sean Bean’s always been a good baddie, the handsome devil,” he laughs

Indeed, Bean has great fun chewing scenery as a menacing Thomas Cromwell but the show belongs to Hughes, who brings huge charisma and gravitas to the title character, Matthew Shardlake. It’s a far cry from the “meek” Shardlake of the books: this version, created with Hughes’ input, is “strong and maybe a little bit sexy, and cool.”

Based on the hit books by author CJ Sansom (whose death was announced on Monday, a few days after our chat) it follows the adventures of the title character, a lawyer brought in by Cromwell to solve a grisly murder. Shardlake is an astute observer of mankind, but he’s also an outsider. In the books, he’s described as a “hunchback”, what today we would call scoliosis – and in the world of Tudor England, he is often treated with suspicion and unease by the general public.

(Disney+)

Hughes, 32, doesn’t have scoliosis, though he was born with radial dysplasia (a shortened right arm). And while, as he puts it, “people don’t make the sign of the cross at me when I walk down Queens Road in Peckham,” he can relate to Shardlake’s experience.

“When you are disabled, when you look different, when you’re the different person, you learn what people’s perceptions of you will be before they even happen,” he says.

“So you’re always one step ahead of what any interaction is going to be… I think every disabled person will have that. Sometimes it takes you by surprise, but there is maybe a front you put on to deal with whatever the world might throw at you.”

Born in 1992, Hughes knew he wanted to be an actor from an early age. “I enjoy the sound of my voice,” he jokes. “Being up in front of everyone, I like being the centre of attention.”

An early spin in the Nativity as the Narrator (a coveted role, as any British schoolchild will know) cemented that desire, and when the time came, acting school beckoned. But although Hughes knew what he wanted to do, the path seemed difficult.

“There was a voice in me that was always like, ‘it’s going to be really tough for you, man. It probably won’t happen,’” he says. “And acting is hard anyway, [for] any actor, disabled or not.”

There was also the issue of representation. “15, 16 years ago, there weren’t that many disabled people on TV. You might see the odd person, but more on stage you’d see it, and even then not that many. I think I was just happy to be in whatever. I didn’t really do any telly until five or six years into my career, once I graduated.”

(Adrienn Szabo)

Instead, he made his name on stage, starring in shows like Saint Joan at the Donmar Warehouse and the Park Theatre’s La Cage Aux Folles. A stint on TV did follow, in roles such as 2018 fantasy series The Innocents, and four years later in Then Barbara Met Alan, in which he played disability activist Alan Holdsworth.

In 2023, he was labelled a Screen International Star of Tomorrow, a list that has spotted actors including Benedict Cumberbatch, Emily Blunt, Dev Patel and Gugu Mbatha-Raw on their way up (Hughes calls his inclusion an “honour”). So his star was on the rise, but it went stratospheric when he landed the role of Richard III at the Royal Shakespeare Company: the first disabled actor to play that character there.

The significance isn’t lost on him. “There’s power in a disabled body on stage,” he says. “And massive power for a disabled body in that role, and for too long it hasn’t been.

“That part [needs to be] imbued with a disabled body on stage to give it the weight of what that story is about. It’s not about disability, it’s about a disabled man in an ableist world, and the terrible things he does to navigate his way to the top.”

Though other disabled actors have taken on the role before – notably Mat Fraser, who was born with underdeveloped arms after his mother was prescribed thalidomide during pregnancy, in 2017 and Tom Mothersdale, who has scoliosis, in 2019 – clearly, there is some way to go. Recently, Shakespeare’s Globe made headlines for casting artistic director Michelle Terry as a non-disabled Richard III in an upcoming production for its 2024 season.

In a statement, Terry wrote that she acknowledged the controversy, and would not be altering her physicality for the role. “I will not be playing Richard with a visible or physical impairment, and we will frame this production in such a way as to make it very clear the lens through which this interpretation is being explored,” she said.

“I acknowledge that for many, Richard III is an iconic disabled figure. I understand that this feels like a missed opportunity for a disabled artist to play a disabled character on a major UK stage, but it will come around again.”

I ask Hughes about it, and he doesn’t hold back. “I was there whilst it was all going on,” he says. “I think it’s a real shame… it’s a really missed opportunity to open the gate for the next generation of disabled Richards, for a younger generation to look up to, and be empowered by. And I don’t think this decision does do that.”

Arthur Hughes as Matthew Shardlake and Anthony Boyle as Jack Barak. (Disney+/Adrienn Szabo. All Rights Reserved)

“It can still be a female Richard. It could be a non-binary Richard, but the thing about Richard is that he’s one of the most famous disabled characters in the English language and there’s a long history of him played by non-disabled people and that has a detrimental effect, I think.”

As somebody who has played Richard, Hughes is a bit of a trailblazer himself, even if he’s too modest to say so. “I do get messages from people who have seen me in something,” he laughs.

“It’s amazing, I think, for disabled people to see themselves represented and in ways that isn’t, you know, ‘Oh wow, you’re amazing, you’re extraordinary and brave’, or the pity; to see disabled people in strong, cool, sexy roles and see them doing ordinary things.” He adds, “It’s much more than the old framing of ‘Oh aren’t you extraordinary, aren’t you amazing, battling through it.’ People just live their lives with disability. It’s such a normal part of society.”

Now he’s playing the lead in Shardlake, those messages are likely to increase – but Hughes doesn’t seem fazed. Instead, he’s hoping the role will help effect change for the next generation coming through.

“I really hope Shardlake does that [in seeing] a visibly disabled actor playing an obviously disabled part, and being an interesting, complicated hero in a story that isn’t about disability. It’s an important part about him, but it’s like the least interesting thing, really.”

Shardlake is streaming now on Disney+

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