Richard III in Fascist England?

[Rakhmetov]

Literary critic Harold Bloom thought Sir Ian McKellen (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Ian%20McKellen&Class=%25&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20111231) was the greatest Richard III he had ever seen, and Richard Loncraine (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Richard%20Loncraine&Class=%25&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20111231)'s 1995 film is based on McKellen's famous 1990 National Theater performance . It sets the play in an England of an alternate timeline, which clearly evokes 1930s fascism.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6_j3sgfaGg

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091007/REVIEWS08/910089998/1004

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5-SUDrHMU&feature=related

[x359594]

And the inspiration for the McKellen/Loncraine version comes from Orson Welles' 1937 modern dress production of Julius Caesar where Caesar and Antony are portrayed as fascists, and Cinna is murdered by black shirts instead of a mob.

Richard Linlater's 2009 movie Me and Orson Welles is set during rehearsals for Julius Caesar, about as close as we'll come to having an idea what the Welles production was like.