The New Murrey and Blue blog

Well, for centuries we’ve been deluged with Shakespeare’s opinion of Richard III, so it’s an intriguing premise to imagine Richard III’s opinion of Shakespeare. Given Richard’s wry sense of humour (remember how he “marvelled” that anyone would want to marry Jane Shore?) I’d love to think he’d give the Bard as good as he got! It would be no more than Shakespeare deserved.

However, in this instance Richard speaks through a mouthpiece, one Philipp Sommers, a Berliner of whom I have to confess I’d never heard until now. If you go to this link (https://shorturl.at/j8mnb) you’ll learn more about Philipp’s show, called Re-Lording Richard 3.0 at York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium on April 24 at 7.30pm. It is part of the 2025 York International Shakespeare Festival, and tells the story from Richard’s point of view. To quote the above link: “….Richard settles his accounts with Shakespeare…”

You can learn much more about the show and how to see it by going to this link: http://yorkshakes.co.uk/programme-2025/re-lording-richard-3-0/. And more about the festival itself here: https://yorkmix.com/york-international-shakespeare-festival-is-back-here-are-eight-highlights/ .

Whether or not Ricardians will approve of Philipp Sommers’ version of Richard remains to be seen, and as I’ve already said I know nothing of him (Philipp, that is, not Richard) so I cannot offer any educated guesswork. You’ll have to go-see for yourselves.

The publicity poster below doesn’t fill me with joy. I wince at the thought of a Plantagenet king clumping around in those awful boots and what look like French knickers!

by viscountessw