By: Emily Chu

Associated with terms such as “hunchback” and “murderer” largely due to Shakespeare’s portrayal of him, King Richard III is one of England’s and Shakespeare’s most well-known evil monarchs.

Shakespeare and the real-life Richard III

But was the real Richard III similar to how Shakespeare portrayed him? The short answer is no. Being the last Plantagenet king, he only reigned for two years. Shakespeare depicts Richard’s rise to the throne as a bloody event. But in real-life, he had nothing to do with the death of Edward, who was the Lancastrian Prince of Wales, or King Henry VI.

The “Princes in the Tower” event is probably one of Richard’s most infamous crimes. Shakespeare writes that Richard killed his nephews, King Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, with no motive at all. Even today, we don’t know what really happened to these two people.

Shakespeare described Richard as a deformed hunchback, and wrote that he was a “lump of foul deformity.” Yet the real-life Richard, scientists discovered, was diagnosed with scoliosis, a condition in which the person’s shoulders have different heights. He was disabled, like Shakespeare pointed out, but not that severely. While this part of the play may be partly true, there is no evidence that the real King Richard III was an evil tyrant.

A new production of Richard III

Today, a new Royal Shakespeare Theater production of Richard III features a disabled actor, Arthur Hughes, as the famously “bunchback’d” monarch. Hughes is diagnosed with radial dysplasia, which affects his right arm.

“Richard is one of the most famous disabled characters in the English-speaking world,” Hughes says. “To be playing him on one of the largest Shakespeare stages in the world and to be a disabled man doing it – it’s an honour. It’s also a good sign of where we’re moving towards.”

Hughes isn’t the first disabled actor to play Richard III, but most productions choose abled actors for this role.

“Richard is written as disabled, so let’s give disabled actors this rich character. Every disability, every disabled actor, will bring something unexpected and new, a different depth that you just won’t get from a non-disabled actor,” Hughes says.

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