The New Murrey and Blue blog

I’ve seen many old photographs and drawings of past actors who’ve played Richard III (the Bard’s mockery, of course), and I know many actresses have played him as well, but this time I’ve come across something new. Well, new to me. Two child sisters, Ellen and Kate Bateman, who played Richard and Henry Tudor respectively. The above photograph is from this site https://www.creativeboom.com/resources/three-free-archives-of-victorian-illustration-to-inspire-you/)

Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s clear the sisters are children in these images, in fact they make me think of the Victorian porcelain dolls dressed in fine clothes. They also look very alike. They weren’t twins, Ellen was younger than Kate (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Josephine_Bateman)but the effect of one playing Richard and the other Henry is really quite disturbing.

Can you imagine the scene at Bosworth if Richard had indeed come face-to-face with the usurper….only to find exactly the same face looking back at him? Quite shiversome. Even worse when in fact handsome Richard would have been confronted by sly, wonky-eyed Tudor! NOT a fair exchange at all!

I can’t abide this messing around with historic figures anyway. Neither Richard nor Henry were female, but very definitely male. That’s the way they should be left. And if the sisters were children, then I imagine the rest of the cast was as well. Just guessing here. OK, OK, simmer down, I don’t want to start an argument, because the thing that brought me to this site had nothing to do with these sisters anyway.

The link above will take you to sites about “….classic literature brought to life in works of art….” i.e. Victorian photographs, drawing, paintings, etchings, book illustrations and so on. The Bateman sisters as they were clothed for Shakespeare just popped up and caught my particular attention.  

The sites in question include the Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive, the Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery and the Kelmscott Chaucer Online.