Compare prices for shakespeare richard ii
 |
Nick Hern Books Richard II (Shakespeare Folios S.)
Pages: 300, Paperback, Nick Hern Books
 |
|
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Shipping: refer to store website
|
|
£12.99
at Amazon.co.uk
|
 |
BBC Shakespeare - Richard II
In 1978, the BBC set itself the task of filming all of William Shakespeare's plays for television. The resulting productions, renowned for their loyalty to the text, utilised the best theatrical and television directors and brought great performances from leading contemporary actors. Richard II, who ascended to the throne as a young man, is a regal and stately monarch. He believes he is the rightful ruler of England, ordained by God, yet he is a weak and ineffective king - wasteful in his spending habits, unwise in his choice of counsellors, and detached from his country and its people. When he seizes the land of his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, both the commoners and the king's noblemen decide that their king has gone too far... This production boasted the most distinguished cast of the entire project, with Derek Jacobi in the title role and John Gielgud as John of Gaunt. "You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs; still I am king of those."
|
|
Availability: refer to store website
Shipping: refer to store website
|
|
£10.99
at choicesdirect.com
|
 |
Penguin Books Richard II, the Pelican Shakespeare (Pelican Shakespeare)
One of Shakespeare's finest history plays, <I>Richard II</I> deals with one of the most sensitive and politically explosive issues of its day--the rights and wrongs of deposing a legitimately appointed king. Forerunner to the two parts of <I>Henry IV</I>, the play deals with the abdication of King Richard II in 1399, the subsequent succession of Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV, and Richard's death in the spring of 1400. But the play has been celebrated above and beyond its stature as historical drama. <I>Richard II</I> begins with a portrait of Richard as a pompous, arrogant and self-regarding sovereign, with little sense of his people or his political responsibilities. As he consistently miscalculates in his attempts to destroy Bolingbroke, and watches his own power wane, he becomes a far more appealing, Hamlet-like figure, more interested in talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs, and sad stories of the death of kings. Richard's speeches become increasingly lyrical and poetic as his supporters desert him, until he finally takes on the stature of the pilloried Christ in the climax of the play, the deposition scene, one of the most politically risky scenes in all of Shakespeare. The play remains most famous for John of Gaunt's This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle speech, but historians believe that the play was also performed in the streets of London in 1601 in support of the Earl of Essex's attempt to depose Elizabeth I. Whilst the plot failed, it showed the power of the theatre of the time, and the politically controversial nature of Shakespeare's play. --<I>Jerry Brotton</I>
|
|
Availability: Usually dispatched within 10 to 13 days
Shipping: refer to store website
|
|
£3.15
at Amazon.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|
|
