Richard of Bordeaux

On the surface of it, Richard of Bordeaux does not sound like a hit play. It was written by a former games teacher and novelist, who lived in Inverness and called herself Gordon Daviot (she later wrote thrillers under a second pseudonym, Josephine Tey). It was set in 1385 and, somewhat hubristically, covered much of the same ground as Shakespeare's Richard II. Yet the 27-year-old John Gielgud thought the play "a gift from heaven" - the star vehicle that would make his name. It...
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On the surface of it, Richard of Bordeaux does not sound like a hit play. It was written by a former games teacher and novelist, who lived in Inverness and called herself Gordon Daviot (she later wrote thrillers under a second pseudonym, Josephine Tey). It was set in 1385 and, somewhat hubristically, covered much of the same ground as Shakespeare's Richard II. Yet the 27-year-old John Gielgud thought the play "a gift from heaven" - the star vehicle that would make his name.
It opened at the New Theatre, London, on February 2 1933. Gielgud was hoarse and exhausted from the strain of producing as well as playing the lead. He had invited his mother to the dress rehearsal for moral support, but she had commented only that the fruit bowl was anachronistic: "Pineapples only came in with Queen Anne."
The critics, however, loved it. Punch's critic praised the "startling vividness" of the writing, which gave "the illusion of taking a peep into a past which is made to come alive". Theatre World's critic was impressed that the "characters speak and behave neither like fustian puppets nor bright young imbeciles, but like real flesh-and-blood creations". In the Daily Telegraph, Sydney W Carroll recorded his "satisfaction that a woman dramatist can exhibit such a masterly insight into male characterisation" and critic after critic praised her use of contemporary dialogue; as Ivor Brown put it in the West End Review, it was "Richard yes-or-no, not yea-or-nay". Generally pleased by its realism, he had one quibble: "Most of the characters would seem to have washed themselves, which, I take it, was not a popular practice in the court of Richard II."