Did anyone else catch this on public television? Richard III is my favorite Shakespeare play, so I recorded and watched this last night.
I thought it was a very good production. Cumberbatch’s Richard was bitter, sarcastic and venomous. He did seem a bit tall to try to hunch down into a crippled shape, but he still managed.
I especially liked the actress portraying Margaret of Anjou, Sophie Okonedo, and her scene of using a mirror to reflect each of the new royals as she cursed them.
Judi Dench was great as she always is, playing the mother of Edward, Clarence and Richard. Who’ll be the go-to actress to play Shakespearian grand dames once she’s gone?
The final battle at Bosworth Field was muddy and gruesome. I like that Richard, once dehorsed, was hampered by his deformity and heavy armor in the mud, which lent a lot of desperation to his cry of “my kingdom for a horse!”
I saw most of that, I thought ‘is that Benedict Cumberbatch??’ I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare and muddy gruesome battles on the Big Fat Holly Jolly Holiday Weekend. (It was great! I’m missing my PBS dramas, and my zombies.)
I DVR’d it along with Henry VI, but haven’t watched it yet.
Popping in to recommend another PBS show that’s been reairing to coincide with Richard III if you get a chance: Resurrecting Richard III.
It’s a very in depth analysis of the real Richard’s recently discovered remains and, most interesting, the military training of a modern day volunteer, Dominic Smee, who has a very similar condition to Richard III (i.e. scoliosis with his spine curved at a similar angle) with some surprising results. A good companion to the Shakespearean take.
Having been to see the site of Richard III’s burial, and the very nice museum they’ve constructed there, I have a much better understanding of the man, I think. He still got what he deserved, since I’m quite convinced he’s the one who had the princes murdered.
Harriet Walter and Juliet Stevenson are the first names to spring to mind in the immediately following generation. Younger still, I suggest Nicola Walker (who bears a remarkable facial resemblance to Flora Robson who was also a grande dame in her day) and Andrea Riseborough will be among the greats.
I think on balance I am, but there is a possibility that Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII to be) might have arranged it before Bosworth. That would still leave unexplained why, so far as I know, Richard made no attempt to show the princes alive or explain a death by disease or accident when he was accused, in his lifetime, by their mother of murdering them.
I saw the okay years ago with William Hurt. The director made some very odd choices. I am sorry I missed this, I think I would have enjoyed it more with Cumberbatch.
Fanciful.
Elizabeth Woodville (queen dowager and the princes’ mother) was in an alliance with Margaret Beaufort in 1483 which involved Buckingham’s failed rebellion and the arranged marriage of her eldest daughter Elizabeth of York to Margaret’s son Henry Tudor indicates that Elizabeth believed her sons were long dead fully two years before Bosworth.
I agree that it all points to the deaths occcurring on Richard’s watch, whether by murder or just disease or accident(but why did he apparently say nothing or not allow any sort of funeral?). I just mentioned the other argument that surfaces from time to time.
The three Yorkist brothers Edward, George and Richard were unscrupulous hatchet men of the first order but the charge that they were usurpers who had killed two legitimate kings of England was the spark that kept their opposition’s cause alive.
Admitting the death of the Princes would simply have transferred legitimacy to the next claimant in the same manner as in 1465 when Edward captured Henry VI and imprisoned him in the Tower of London. To kill Henry then while his son was alive would have shifted the Lancastrian claim from a captive king to one at liberty. However in 1471 when the same opportunity arose Edward, Prince of Wales and Henry’s heir had just been killed at Tewkesbury and Henry was killed in the Tower within days.
Hence the signal importance of the alliance between Elizabeth and Margaret which allowed Henry to become the most unlikely king of an unlikely age.
I need to find out when they start it from the beginning again. I wasn’t paying attention so I thought it was just a Game of Thrones knockoff. Yeah, I know it’s pretty much the same stuff, but I loves the Shakespeare, and I am a dedicated Ricardian, as these things go.
I’m a Shakespeare purist, that is I like to hear the plays as Shakespeare wrote them. Thus The Hollow Crown treatment of the history plays with all the edits and omissions (sometimes of really wonderful lines) is not for me, although I do understand that sometimes the plays need to be simplified to attract modern audiences and if it introduces more people to Shakespeare I’m all for it. As I say though, it’s not my cup of tea.
Basically the whole shmear was condensed down into two instalments of *Henry VI *and one of *Richard III *to tell one big “War of the Roses” story, with a lot of trimming - some acceptable, some disappointing - and blurring of where one play ended and the next began. That’s showbiz for you. Still well done for an abridged version.
One good thing about 2016 was the endless Shakespeare material on the BBC. In addition to The Hollow Crown, offerings ranged from broadcasts of actual theatrical productions of *Richard *II (starring David Tennant) and *King Lear *(Don Warrington) to Branagh’s adapted Henry V and Russell T Davies’ highly fanciful Midsummer Night’s Dream (plus a whole lot of specials featuring actors talking about Shakespeare, and a Ben Elton comedy starring David Mitchell as the man himself.)