Geoffrey Palmer was in the audience.

And now, all of a sudden, it's Richard III all over the news - skeleton, DNA, car park etc...

Spooky.

The wonderful thing about Mark Rylance's performance is that it brings Richard to life; a funny, witty, wicked, clever, devious man.

And now we know it IS Richard - does it negate the play? As historical fact - yes - but as a work of art - no; the extraordinary feeling from the thousands of us as we heard "A horse..." and "Now is the winter..." - some incredible lines, great scenes, and wonderful acting.

I urge you to grab a seat if you can (I think there are only a few remaining performances).

Shakespeare really defamed Richard in his play and was 'playing to the audience' by creating a villian.

These days he'd get a job on The Telegraph.

JK2006 wrote:
And now we know it IS Richard - does it negate the play? As historical fact - yes - but as a work of art - no; the extraordinary feeling from the thousands of us as we heard "A horse..." and "Now is the winter..." - some incredible lines, great scenes, and wonderful acting.

Shakespeare wrote a great play but even he must have been aware that he was twisting the facts in order to make it more dramatic. After all, he called it a "tragedy" not a "history."

His Richard III is a villain and a superb villain at that, but Shakespeare was not writing history, no matter what the Duke of Marlborough might have thought. There are many instances where the portrayal just does not fit the historical record.

For instance, in one of his three plays about Henry VI, Shakespeare has Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III, killing the Duke of Somerset at the first battle of St Albans. At the time of that fight, Richard Plantagenet wasn't Duke of Gloucester and, more cogently, he wasn't yet three years old!

Shakespeare was just giving the "new" Tudor dynasty the villian that they wanted.

Every schoolboy knows that WS made good use of the Licenses.

Artistic, dramatic, poetic and historical.