King John (play) production of the play (directed by Ben Humphrey) around the tomb of King John in Worcester Cathedral on the 800th anniversary of the King's death. King John was played by Phil Leach. The Bremer Shakespeare Company performed the play at the Globe Theater Neuss as part of the Shakespeare Festival im Globe Neuss on 28th June 2005. The play was translated into German and directed by Rainer Iwersen. King John (play) The Life and Death of King John, a history play by William Shakespeare, dramatises the reign of John, King of England (ruled 1199–1216), son of Henry II of England
John, King of England to emerge during the Tudor period, mirroring the revisionist histories of the time. The anonymous play "The Troublesome Reign of King John" portrayed the king as a "proto-Protestant martyr", similar to that shown in John Bale's morality play "Kynge Johan", in which John attempts to save England from the "evil agents of the Roman Church". By contrast, Shakespeare's "King John", a relatively anti-Catholic play that draws on "The Troublesome Reign" for its source material, offers a more "balanced, dual view of a complex monarch as both a proto-Protestant victim of Rome's machinations and as a weak, selfishly motivated ruler". Anthony