Richard III (play) The earliest certain performance occurred on 1633, when Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria watched it on the Queen's birthday. Colley Cibber produced the most successful of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare with his version of "Richard III", at Drury Lane starting in 1700. Cibber himself played the role till 1739, and his version was on stage for the next century and a half. It contained the lines "Off with his head; so much for Buckingham" – possibly the most famous Shakespearean line that Shakespeare did not write – and "Richard's himself again!". The original Shakespearean version returned in a
Colley Cibber play called "Flora, or Hob in the Well", but it is not by Cibber. "Hob, or the Country Wake. A Farce. By Mr. Doggett" was attributed to Cibber by William Chetwood in his "General History of the Stage" (1749), but John Genest in "Some Account of the English Stage" (1832) thought it was by Thomas Doggett. Other plays attributed to Cibber but probably not by him include "Cinna's Conspiracy", performed at Drury Lane on 19 February 1713, and "The Temple of Dullness" of 1745. Colley Cibber Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright