Richard III (play)

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Richard III, also called The Tragedy of King Richard the Third (PROSE: The Empire of Glass) and The Tragedy of Richard of Gloucester, (AUDIO: The Kingmaker) was a play by William Shakespeare featuring the eponymous King of England. Its depiction of Richard III's rise to power and short reign was fictionalised and highly unflattering, informed by the Tudor period in which it was written.

History

Origins

Shakespeare did not do any historical research when writing Richard III, instead using as his sole basis material which was decried by the Fifth Doctor as "that nonsense by Thomas More".

The Doctor did not look upon him favourably for this, branding him a "hack" and asking himself while alone "How can a man capable of such profound insight, such a knack with words, such talent at describing the human condition, with just a few strokes of the pen be such an utter nincompoop?". He also scoffed at his use of dramatic license, stating "Of all the hypocritical, cloth-headed, myopic buffoons he really has to take the biscuit".

Despite people questioning Richard's motives for killing the Princes in the Tower by Shakespeare's time, the play still depicted Richard as being responsible for their deaths. This was because, as the Doctor put it, Shakespeare was a "fiction-peddling puppet to the House of Tudor and a lapdog to the court of Queen Elizabeth". Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Henry Tudor, who succeeded Richard following the Battle of Bosworth. Another historical inaccuracy present in the play was Richard's murder of his brother George, Duke of Clarence by drowning him in a vat of wine. In fact, Richard had loved George very much and did no such thing. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

16th century performances

First performance

The premiere night of the play was at the Rose theatre in London in 1592, specifically on the day of rival playwright Robert Greene's death. Shakespeare was supposed to appear in the title role and was the only member of the cast to have learnt Richard's lines.

Five minutes before the opening of the house, the TARDIS materialised backstage and the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler exited. They came from 21st century Leicester Square, where they had seen Greene go on a destructive jealousy-fuelled rampage under the influence of the Shadeys, in an attempt to prevent Greene from murdering Shakespeare during his early career. To give the Doctor a better chance of defeating the Shadeys, Rose distracted Shakespeare and got him away from the theatre by claiming Queen Elizabeth I was prepared to give him a royal audience at his home if he came immediately.

Outside the Rose, some of the cast noticed Shakespeare's absence and began to worry, not willing to disperse the crowds of people entering the theatre. They overheard the Doctor quoting one of Richard's lines and told him that he had to go on in Shakespeare's place, a role he eventually accepted.

"Was ever woman in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won? I'll have her but I will not keep her for long! What? I that killed her husband and —"The final scripted lines of the first showing, delivered by the Ninth Doctor, as Richard III

Not long into the play, Rose and Shakespeare burst into the theatre with Greene and the Shadeys Bloodfinger and Woodscrape in hot pursuit. Their entrance caused the audience and cast to hurriedly flee from the stage and stands, with one audience member proclaiming "'Tis the pestilence!". Shakespeare was initially more concerned with the Doctor's unscheduled intrusion onto his stage, calling him a "dog" and reclaiming Richard's hump from the Doctor's back. Attention soon turned to the threat Greene posed to Earth, however. Although Shakespeare briefly put the planet in peril by provoking Greene, the situation was defused by the Doctor and Rose when they promised to remember him as "bigger than Shakespeare" should he choose to save the world. Greene then expelled the Shadeys' influence from his body, banishing them back to their dimension, and was returned to his rightful place in history, on his deathbed. (COMIC: A Groatsworth of Wit)

Other performances

Shakespeare believed Christopher Marlowe had "stolen" some of his themes from Richard III for his play Edward II. Francis Pearson was another to lift something from Shakespeare's work, producing his own "inferior copy" called The True Tragedie of Richard the Third. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)

In 1597, a time when the play was "just out" having only had its previews, its theatre program featured several adverts for shops and contained a disclaimer which stated "The characters depicted in this play are fictious. Any similarity to persons living or dead is completely coincidental".

Peri Brown and Erimem attended a 1597 performance in which Richard Burbage portrayed Richard III while another man played Elizabeth Woodville. In one scene, Richard asked "When have I injured thee, dear Elizabeth? When have I done thee wrong?" before stating "His royal grace cannot be scarce of breathing while you trouble him with lewd complaints". This prompted a member of the audience to proclaim that he wouldn't complain if she wanted to say anything lewd to him. The audience continued to heckle the actors throughout the rest of the conversation, eventually causing Burbage to break character and shout "Look, will you lot just allow me to finish?". When they simply laughed, Burbage escalated the confrontation to a full-blown fight with the troublesome theatre-goers. Peri had not thought much of the performance up to that point and told Erimem she was rooting for the audience to win the fight "with actors like these".

Before leaving in the midst of the chaos, Peri summarised the rest of the play to Erimem. She said that Richard killed "just about everyone on his bloody rise to power" before Henry Tudor arrives to stake his "flimsly claim" to the throne and Richard is "hacked to pieces on Bosworth Field". This spoiled the experience of one couple who conspired to pelt Peri with rotten fruit as revenge, though she and Erimem left before this could happen. After the Doctor asked if they had enjoyed themselves, Peri told him she particularly liked the bits when "Richard III los[t] his temper, thr[ew] his hump into the wings and power-dive[d] on the groundlings, and Erimem br[o]ke a man's arm for fondling her bottom". The Doctor jokingly replied that those were his favourite bits too.

Despite Peri and Erimem's belief that the play would not be resumed, this turned out to be a misconception as Burbage managed to get a handle on the rowdy audience. However, the play was interrupted yet again when the Doctor purposely materialised the TARDIS onstage to convince a hostile Shakespeare to leave the craft. He did so, leaving immediately to speak with Burbage and get the play back on track. Shakespeare told him to "just go with it, Burbage, the show must go on" and he quickly adlibbed a line to explain the sudden appearance of the blue box.

"Begone foul spirits. You will not prick my conscience like all the other spirits I have yet to meet in Act V."Richard Burbage, as Richard III

Shakespeare thought this was "very good" but the play was interrupted for a final time when the real King Richard III came onto the stage to confront Shakespeare about his unflattering and inaccurate portrayal which he had seen on the TARDIS scanner. Shakespeare first threatened Richard with an inoperable Cyber-rifle, then claimed the play to be acceptable under the rules of "legitimate satire", until eventually Richard took Burbage's sword and chased Shakespeare out of the theatre with it. Peri and Erimem also exited the TARDIS, with Peri telling Burbage they were "two sisters who ha[d] engaged on a quest to track down [their] true loves, both of whom, by way of coincidence, happen[ed] to be twin brothers" and so they had dressed themselves as boys to "make [their] way in the world without awkward questions". This elicited boos from the audience, with one man attesting to having "seen that one last week". (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

Later (and earlier) history

By the 20th century, the Fifth Doctor claimed Richard III was seen as "nothing but tawdry propaganda" and that suspicion for the murder of the Princes in the Tower had fallen on Henry Tudor. The Doctor told Shakespeare this and it inspired him to stowaway in the TARDIS when the Doctor and his companions travelled to the 1480s to investigate the Princes' disappearance. He conspired to persuade Richard to kill the Princes in such a way unmistakable to history so as to protect the memory of his beloved Queen's bloodline.

In 1483, Shakespeare encountered Richard, who was then Duke of Gloucester. Claiming to be a "Mr Seyton" and as a "glimpse of the future", he outlined the (fictious) plot of his play The Tragedy of Richard of Gloucester. He claimed Richard was made the protector of his nephews and loyally took Prince Edward to London to be crowned King of England. However, young Edward allowed himself to be influenced by the "conniving" Woodville family to such an extent that he eventually had Richard imprisoned for treason, tortured and put to death. This made Edward very unpopular in the country and he was ultimately deposed by the French, bringing the English monarchy to an end. Although Richard allowed Shakespeare to accompany him back to London as his advisor and did end up taking the throne, he was never actually convinced by Shakespeare's portents of doom and would imprison him for treason six months later. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

References

The Sixth Doctor later paraphrased and then quoted, "My kingdom for a horse," from Act V, Scene IV of the play. (AUDIO: The Hollows of Time) The Tenth Doctor did likewise in Goritania in the 1780s. Donna Noble did not recognise the quotation. (AUDIO: Death and the Queen)