Q 01/05

Which season 'of our discontent' does Richard declare over in the first line of Richard III?

A) Autumn

B) Winter

C) Spring

D) Summer

Answer · why

B) Winter

Winter has turned to 'glorious summer', he says, by 'this sun of York': a pun on his brother Edward, the Yorkist king. Britain's strike-hit winter of ...

Q 02/05

What does the unhorsed Richard offer in exchange for a horse at the climax of Richard III?

A) His castle

B) His kingdom

C) His soul

D) His treasury

Answer · why

B) His kingdom

His kingdom is the price he shouts twice, yet when an aide offers to help him flee he refuses to leave the field. He claims to have already killed fiv...

Q 03/05

Beneath what kind of city-centre site was the real Richard III's skeleton found in 2012?

A) A bus station

B) A cinema

C) A car park

D) A supermarket

Answer · why

C) A car park

A car park had been laid over the vanished friary church where he was buried in 1485. The skeleton turned up on the very first day of the dig.

Q 04/05

Unable to 'prove a lover', what does Richard say he is determined to prove as Richard III opens?

A) A soldier

B) A scholar

C) A martyr

D) A villain

Answer · why

D) A villain

A villain is a part he chooses out loud, blaming a body 'rudely stamp'd' and unfit for courtship. By confiding in the audience he makes them his accom...

Q 05/05

In Richard III, hired murderers stab Richard's imprisoned brother and then drown him in what?

A) A barrel of ale

B) A butt of malmsey

C) The River Thames

D) A cistern of rainwater

Answer · why

B) A butt of malmsey

A butt of malmsey is a huge cask of sweet wine. Shakespeare did not invent the detail: soon after the real duke's private execution in 1478, a rumour ...