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Effective immediately, all productions of Shakespeare's play need to drop the whole withered arm bit. I'd give links but this is Top of the Pops on the Net right now.

That was one helluva curvature in his spine, though.

Lucky Jack Aubrey wrote:

That was one helluva curvature in his spine, though.

Well, the Tudors got the hunchback part right (c'mon, who in the 15th Century wouldn't have called that a hunchback).

For those slow on the news: RIchard III, a/k/a the Evil King in the Shakespeare canon (i.e. murderer of the Princes in the Tower, still unproven), has been identified and dug up out of a car park that overlays the ancient (and demolished) Greyfriars Monastery in Leicester, England where he was unceremoniously dumped after having the bad luck to get killed at Bosworth Field and, through his death, allow the establishment of the Tudor Dynasty. Given the chunks out of his skull, he went down hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation ... of_England

I think my first exposure to the myth of Richard III was the the Neil Simon movie "Goodbye Girl", where Richard Dreyfuss was trying to figure out how to play Richard III while simultaneously trying to figure out his new female roommate. There might have been other important bits but I was too young, white, & nerdy to catch on way back then.

And yes, old English history stuff like this just gets me.

Alas, it is a bit easier for an actor to sport a withered arm than a twisted spine. And -- news flash -- the other plays have their anachronisms and historical inaccuracies (and in some cases deliberately misleading portrayals) also. Expecting to learn history from Shakespeare is like expecting to learn physics from Star Wars. That's not what it's for.

If you want to see an interesting cinematic version of "Richard III," look for the 1995 one starring Ian McKellen. It's set in an alternative 1930s Britain where fascism got the upper hand; the style is art deco, the combat is modern, but Shakespeare's dialog is almost entirely intact.

(As for the discovery: not surprisingly, the BBC coverage has been quite good; I look forward to the inevitable documentary).

UberGerbil wrote:

Alas, it is a bit easier for an actor to sport a withered arm than a twisted spine. And -- news flash -- the other plays have their anachronisms and historical inaccuracies (and in some cases deliberately misleading portrayals) also. Expecting to learn history from Shakespeare is like expecting to learn physics from Star Wars. That's not what it's for.

When you're writing plays for the approval of Good Queen Bess the First, one accepts the Royal revisions and keeps one's festering gob shut.

I've seen the McKellen fascist version and I don't like.

Captain Ned wrote:

When you're writing plays for the approval of Good Queen Bess the First, one accepts the Royal revisions and keeps one's festering gob shut.

Indeed. And on that note, I recommend the play “Equivocation” by Bill Cain.

I've seen the McKellen fascist version and I don't like.

Any movie that features a de Havilland Dragon Rapide is going to be a favorite of mine. But I'm a sucker for stylized, modernized Shakespeare: I quite enjoyed the Luhrmann "Romeo + Juliet" even though I'm not really a fan of either of the two lead actors. I even liked "Scotland PA" (though anything that features Christopher Walken already has a finger on the scale)

UberGerbil wrote:

Any movie that features a de Havilland Dragon Rapide is going to be a favorite of mine.

OK, the DH-89 is killer. I've yet to see an "alternative" Shakespeare that better explained the play than the original.

the bust of him they did looks pretty damn close to the paintings done in life.

When we were in London, the guy giving the Tower of London tour spent 15 minutes on the Princes in the Tower. Fascinating and sad story.

Captain Ned wrote:

And yes, old English history stuff like this just gets me.

I enjoy it as well. Speaking of The Tudors, as dramatized as that TV series was, its constant allusions to historical occurrences encouraged me to look them up and read about them. I know a fair bit more about that period of history as a result.

And then, of course, there were the nekkid wimmin.

I'd totally smash the Tudors-made-for-TV Anne Boleyn. The real one, not so much.

steelcity_ballin wrote:

I'd totally smash the Tudors-made-for-TV Anne Boleyn. The real one, not so much.

For her time, the real Anne Boleyn was hawt. She bathed once a week, so she had a leg up on most to start with

A very hairy leg?

paulWTAMU wrote:

A very hairy leg?

Henry was into furries.

EDIT: Seems like Greek & Roman men used pumice stones to remove body hair, so there's clear precedent for leg hair removal some 1500+ years before Anne Boleyn.

This thread made me start watching the Tudors (Amazon Prime rocks btw).

Not a bad show! I don't know how much I'll trust the "history" on it but fun to watch.

There's a fair amount of poetic license, and a few things are just blatantly wrong, but The Tudors does follow the basic history of Henry VIII's reign.

I think I'm going to do a little more reading about Richard III, and the Plantagenets in general.

Lucky Jack Aubrey wrote:

..... the Plantagenets in general.

Their history makes my head hurt.

I remember taking some basic European history in college and getting lost in a maze of names. At least in Japanese history the damn names weren't always the same!