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
Caius Gabriel Cibber later emigrated to London, England, probably via the Netherlands. At first, he worked for the mason-sculptor John Stone, who had a workshop on Long Acre, until he set up his own studio after Stone's death in 1667. In 1668, Cibber became a Freeman, by Redemption, of the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers , and in 1679 he became a Liveryman of the same Company, remaining so until his death. He carved the Company's coat of arms, and a stone mermaid pump, which stood outside Leathersellers' Hall in Little St Helen's, off Bishopsgate. The mermaid's head survives, having been discovered in excavations