The Tragedy of Richard III

That period known in the 15th century as the War Of The Roses ended with the reign of Richard III who has come down to us through a well written play and a host of great actors playing one of the great Machiavellian villains of all time. Was Richard really as bad as all that. He was no saint, but he was living in a time when one of the few saints around was Henry VI of Lancaster and he paid as dearly for sainthood as Richard did for villainy.

If you can get over the fact that Ron Cook who plays Richard III bears an uncanny resemblance to Dudley Moore, you will enjoy this BBC production of The Tragedy Of Richard III. Richard III in his time was called 'Crookback' because he was supposedly a hunchback though it never affected him on the battlefield, even his enemies conceded he was quite the man at arms. That was a bit of Tudor propaganda as spun by the court favorite William Shakespeare.

The two roles that really make this production are that of Rowena Cooper as Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner who married Edward IV and bore him the two sons who were killed in the Tower in 1483. She spent a lot of time making sure her generous and indulgent husband took care of his many in-laws. She transforms remarkably as the Queen enjoying privileges to the distraught mother whose sons were taken and murdered, probably on Richard's wishes if not unwritten orders.

One thing that should be clear. This incident with the murder of the child king Edward V and his brother Richard plays more shocking for today's audience than back at the Globe Theater in Shakespeare's day. People had an abundance of kids because the majority of them died before reaching their majority. And child monarchs mean regencies and regencies always mean court politics on steroids and dynastic challenges. People in those time need only look in Scotland to the north which had a series of child monarchs which weakened the realm so totally that it's only remedy was union with England which happened not long after people saw the first production of this play. And the three parts of Henry VI that led up to the events here began with an infant king and the struggles for power which turned into the War Of The Roses.

The other female role that stands out is Margaret Of Anjou, late the Queen consort of Henry VI who singlehandedly for her husband and son kept the Lancastrian claims going. She was and is a controversial figure in English history still. Julia Foster played her in all the stages of her life in the three parts of Henry VI and in Richard III. Ironically enough this role was eliminated in Laurence Olivier's acclaimed big screen film of this play. But seeing it now that kind of diminishes Olivier's work somewhat. Foster is a bitter figure of passion, grief, and revenge in equal parts as she curses all the new Yorkist royalty and nobility and most especially Richard of Gloucester.

For Richard it was a case of what went around really did come around for him.

I'm fairly sure that many educated and interested-in-film folk have seen the superb and terrifying McKellen version, but sadly, I'd bet hardly anyone remembers this version, which in the original was the capstone of the cycle of plays that begins with Richard II and continues through the various Henry plays (six of 'em). The series was cast as a whole, and the list of actors is a who's-who of British acting skill, culminating in this horrorshow of a play. From the opening moments, when the camera pulls back from the last frame of Henry VI, Part III to reveal a small blackboard, onto which a disembodied hand scrawls Richard III in chalk, to the final frame, where Margaret sits, cackling hysterically atop a pile of bodies (all the characters killed in the preceding eight plays), this version assaults you and tests your ability to withstand true, and intentional villainy, as personified in the demonic Richard. See this version...plague the BBC with letters asking for it to be reissued...write to the actors and shower them with adulation..whatever it takes to return this play to the public eye, where it richardly belongs. Cheers!

In 1982, the BBC, in their undertaking to produce all of Shakespeare's plays, assembled a company of actors which would take us, in one logical arc, from Henry VI part one right through to Richard III. This is notable in that through all four plays, the principal actors keep their roles (although smaller roles are also undertaken). This gives an unparalleled clarity to the events as you see the chaste Margaret descend to Machiavellian plotting to destroy challengers to her grip on power, and then her downfall as Edward and then Richard take power. It is fitting that she, in a horrific scene at the end of this play, is seen atop a mound of dead. This was, after all, her legacy.

In a simple, but effective, set, with authentic costumes and asides taken directly to camera, this brings your closer to Shakespeare's work than much of the praised films and productions in the past.

If you found Olivier's version just too hammy to bear..... try this one.

It is one of the best known and most produced play by Shakespeare and certainly the best known and most produced history. What's surprising about this play is that it can stand all by itself though knowing the three Henry the Sixth plays help understand the stake of this one. True enough it only helps because this history is very self sufficient, in a way.

We have to clear the plate of a question that is today no longer debated. Shakespeare proposes here the vision of Richard III promoted by the Tudors, that is to say those who vanquished and destroyed him, in order to stabilize and justify their taking over te throne of England. Richard III was not the physical monster they described.

This being said this play is a real thriller. Richard has to eliminate everyone on his path to climb (really climb) to the throne. I would say that sounds plain normal but he declares himself to be evil and to enjoy killing, particularly innocent people. And when he has finally finished the elimination of those who have a blood claim to the throne, except Richmond who has fled to Brittany, he starts killing those who have helped him in his ascent, which is politically absurd and plain suicidal. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, comes back with an army and defeats Richard III at Bosworth in 1485 and thus becomes Henry VII known as the first Tudor king, though he is a Lancaster, which means the House of Lancaster in the end wins but they change the dynastic reference, probably to ensure the past be the past, which might explain why Richard III after proper examination was buried in a small church with no indication on his grave, which explains why in modern times when the church was pull down to open some space for a parking lot no archaeological search was started and Richard III remained under the parking lot for a long time before new excavations to build some new structure finally discovered him, or at least his remains.

The victor is always right and history hates the past and disguises it to the colors of the present, which means the color of the past changes from one present to the next [...]

This production is superb in many ways, once again by the physical acting of pain, sorrow and death, particularly with body language, facial language and tonal language. A triplet of queens is essential: Margaret the old widow of Henry the Sixth; Lady Anne, widow to Edward Prince of Wales, son of Henry the Sixth, later married to the Duke of Gloster who later became Richard the Third; and Elizabeth, queen to Edward the Fourth and then his widow. Of these three queens Lady Anne is the most discreet though fundamental because of her marrying Gloster, the future Richard the Third and the killer of both her husband and her father in law, but another triplet is composed with the Duchess of York, mother to King Edward the Fourth, Clarence and Gloster, the latter to become Richard the Third. The oldest of them, Margaret is a real warmonger against Richard the Third and this production makes her triumphant at the very end, after the concluding words from Henry the Seventh, sitting, laughing hysterically, at the top of a pile of half denuded dead bodies, and holding the corpse of Richard the Third. The full and final step of this purification cycle typical of Shakespeare: she takes, or rather is granted, the victory she is provided with by history or fate [...]

But to show how strong Shakespeare's music can be, I will make a final remark on the famous ghost scene. In his last night living on earth before the battle of Bosworth he has a dream that brings up EIGHT apparitions of ghosts, eleven ghosts all together [...]

EIGHT is the symbol of the Second Coming, and here we have eleven second comings. The Second Coming is the triggering event of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation.

ELEVEN is the number of apostles after the elimination of Judas, the eleven apostles who retire away from the Crucifixion (except John) and who deny Jesus, like Peter, and who hide away from the crucifixion and post crucifixion scene out of fear. These eleven apostles announce the resurrection too, even if in a negative way, the way they announce the end of Richard III but they also appear to Richmond and they announce the resurrection of the English monarchy with Henry the Seventh, known as Richmond in this play.

Finally NINE is necessary to complete the prophecy, the prediction, by identifying the beast, in this case Richard the Third. And sure enough the ghosts are going to curse Richard III with a simple formula: "despair and die." And in that ghost scene this mantra is repeated NINE times.

We must understand that in Elizabethan times, after the Reformation and in the ascending phase of chapels and Puritanism, such biblical references (in this case the Passion of Jesus and the Book of Revelation) were unavoidable elements that everyone understood and appreciated. What's more it is very effective in the "propaganda" (rather self-justification) of the Tudors: the killing of the crucifixion is prophesied, the Second Coming is announced and the Beast is identified. We are in the midst of medieval numerical symbolism. This makes me say NINE is the numerical symbol of this king, and as I have already said in my review of Henry the Sixth, Part Three: 1 + 8 = 9; 4 + 5 = 9; 1 + 4 + 8 + 5 = 18 = 9 x 2. The beast is killed on the diabolical date that is also the resurrection date of Bosworth, the final battle. After this last battle the prophecy of the New Messianic Jerusalem becomes possible [...]

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I love Shakespeare, both classically performed and the recontextualised adaptations of recent years, but this production, made with a large budget (British television-wise) with a talented director and a superb cast somehow manages to fail spectacularly to bring Shakespeare's classic play to life. I would not envy Jane Howell's task of directing Richard III using the (almost) complete text as a shooting script, but I think she could have approached it in a more imaginative fashion, making better use of television conventions. Save for the close-up and the shot-reverse shot technique, Howell prefers to display what is simply "Filmed Theater", with a set that offers little to a medium as visual as television. The performances, though excellent, don't really come across with the power and passion they no doubt would in the theater, and the end result is a four hour long dirge that does no credit to Shakespeare's sharp and vibrant play.