The Wars of the Roses (adaptation) IV", Hall wrote, "underlying these plays is the curse on the House of Lancaster. Bolingbroke deposed Richard II to become Henry IV. Richard II was a weak and sometimes a bad king, ungoverned, unbalanced; he could not order the body politic. Yet for Shakespeare, his deposition is a wound on the body politic, which festers through reign after reign, a sin which can only be expiated by blood-letting. The bloody totalitarianism of "Richard III" is the expiation of England." John Jowett argues the production very much reinforced the teleological assumptions upon which the Tudor myth is based; "it generated an
Cultural depictions of Richard III of England Olivier was 37 when he played him on stage in 1944). Ron Cook was 35 when he played Richard III in the 1983 BBC Shakespeare production of the play. Aneurin Barnard was 26 at the time of filming, and Cumberbatch 38. Richard has been portrayed by the following actors on film, mostly in versions of the Shakespeare play: Richard has been portrayed on television by: Sue Parrill and William B. Robison, "The Tudors on Film and Television" (McFarland, 2013). . Cultural depictions of Richard III of England Richard III of England has been depicted in literature and popular culture many