A To Z Challenge 2022: Shakespeare - R Is For Richard III

 

David Garrick as Richard III. Public Domain.

We all know about the real Richard III, the one who was found  under a car park in Leicester a few years ago and buried respectfully in an oak coffin built by a Canadian descendant of one of his sisters. At the funeral one of the guests, who read a poem, was also descended from one of Richard’s relatives. I mention him because that family member was Benedict Cumberbatch, who played one of the nastiest versions of Richard III I have ever seen, in The Hollow Crown series.  

You may know him better as Marvel’s Dr Strange. 

Today we will check out Shakespeare’s version of Richard III, that complete and total villain. Mind you, villain or not, he often can’t believe how easy those victims of his are to con. Benedict Cumberbatch does it best, his face expressing sheer amazement as the woman whose husband he killed is persuaded by him right over her father in law’s coffin. Later in the play he talks to his sister in law, Edward’s Queen, who knows all the dreadful things he has done and still tells him to write to her about marrying her daughter, his niece. Again, Richard shows utter amazement at her willingness to make deals with the man who killed off her family, and doesn’t Benedict Cumberbatch perform this beautifully!

I studied this play in Year 11. We had a very good English teacher that year, who happily discussed all the details with us, as well as telling us about Josephine Tey’s novel, Daughter Of Time, which cleverly had her character Inspector Grant handle a cold case from his hospital bed and work out the story of the real Richard III. I read it and ended up joining the Richard III Society. 

But, evil or not, Shakespeare’s Richard is a fascinating character. He starts the play with that famous speech beginning:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York,

And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 

The speech is all about how things are going so well for his family, but peace is boring! He isn’t suited for it because with his hunch back no woman wants him anyway. 

About five minutes later, mind you, he woos the Lady Anne and talks her into marrying him! 

There is a Dave Allen skit of this scene. Richard offers her his dagger to kill him, knowing she won’t, but in the skit she stabs him. He sinks to the floor groaning,  “You weren’t…supposed…to do that…”

The play is absolutely full of dead bodies with Richard gleefully standing over them - and with his speeches he sucks the audience into laughing with him.

Shakespeare got his information from a variety of sources, including Holinshed’s Chronicles. It’s inaccurate, of course, but Shakespeare was, after all, writing in the age of Elizabeth I, granddaughter of Henry VII, who killed Richard and took the throne. It’s one of his earlier plays, but certainly powerful. The fact that there have been so many productions of it certainly suggests that. 

Laurence Olivier’s film is the one we saw when I was in high school. Olivier’s Richard was utterly charming…until he wasn’t. The scene where little Richard of York, the younger prince, makes a joke about his hump is the one where the child suddenly realises his nice uncle isn’t so nice, when Richard turns and glares at him. The boy is terrified.

There is a version I can’t get hold of, with Ian McKellen in the lead, performed in 1930s costumes. The film opens with a party at the palace celebrating the family’s victories, with a dance band and a glamorous female singer singing a song with lyrics by Marlowe. The Queen’s brother is shown as an American, who would be considered an outsider in those days. The battle scene near the end involves tanks. If I can ever get a copy I will re-view it with great pleasure. 

Looking For Richard is an American film with Al Pacino, in which the play is discussed in great detail and scenes from it performed by Pacino and others. It’s definitely worth a watch, though you might prefer a straight performance of the play.

References are made to the play in many films and TV shows. My favourite is the first episode of Blackadder with Roman Atkinson. The premise is that Richard’s defeat at the battle of Bosworth was all a lie made up by Henry VII for propaganda purposes. In the opening scene, Richard, played by Peter Cook, is playing with his nephews, one of whom, Richard of York, grows up into Brian Blessed. He wins Bosworth for his uncle, but Richard III is killed by Edmund Blackadder(Atkinson) in mistake for a horse thief(“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! Ah, horsie…”). Edmund’s father, Richard of York, becomes Richard IV. 

There are, of course, many Richard III novels, including my favourite, We Speak No Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman, which uses a line from the Shakespeare play for a title, but is about the real, decent Richard. 

See you tomorrow for the letter S!