Henry the Eighth I ain't but Richard the Third I am, I am!

Richard III, rest in peace/New York Times

Research seems to have nailed down that a skeleton buried under what was the Greyfriars Priory in London is indeed the physical remains of the blackest villain of Shakespeare, Richard III.

I do hope, per some of the scholars who commented in the story, that this leads to a rehabilitation of Richard's character. He was no saint, but nowhere near the ogre the Bard made him out to be, in what is a great play, but also an overblown ode of propaganda to the Tudor monarchy.

That said, per the header of this post, somebody HAS TO remake the old Herman's Hermits song, "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am":

I'm Henry the eighth I am

Henry the eighth I am, I am

I got married to the widow next door

She's been married seven times before

And every one was an Henry (Henry)

She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam (no Sam)

I'm her eighth old man,

I'm HenryHenry the eighth I am

You know, a Weird Al Yankovic or Bob Rivers doing "I'm Richard the Third, I Am."

I'm Richard the third, I am

Richard the third I am, I am

I'm an uncle to the kids next door

Their daddy was a king but not no more

So I put them in a Tower with gifts galore.

Too young to rule, I took their place

Stuffed them away in an evil place.

I'm Richard the third, I am, I am

But Henry rose up and wham and bam.

And there you have it.

Salon's theater critic knows bupkis

First, on page 2 of a 10-page slideshow about the best Shakespearean movies, Matt Zoller Seitz insults Orson Welles in his weighty later life, apparently believing he was born fat:

I must acknowledge Orson Welles' 1966 epic "Chimes at Midnight," a low-budget labor of love that stitches together bits of several Shakespeare plays, including "Henry IV Parts I and II," "Henry V," "Richard II" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor." Welles wrote the script, directed and costars as Falstaff — pretty much the only great Shakespeare part that such a huge actor could convincingly play.

But, it gets much worse.

Omitting Welles' Macbeth entirely in his discussion of best movie versions of that play?

Instead, Welles' Macbeth, with his excellent use of shadows, Jacques Ibere's excellent musical score and more, is head and shoulders above Polanski's version, with Seitz ignorantly tabs as his No. 1.

Add in the fact that he omits the Burton/Taylor version of Taming of the Shrew, even from his "Wild Card" (the wild card here being the fact of art imitating life) and he appears even more clueless.

It takes a thief to trip up a thief - Irony Alert

Steal a 400-year-old First Folio of Shakespeare? Check.

Apparently steal other high-dollar items? Check?

Live in a modest house, apparently to keep a low profile? Check.

Shoot that idea in the foot? Priceless:

The man lives in a modest home in a working-class neighborhood – the ancestral town of George Washington.

But there was a silver Ferrari in his driveway and Armani suits in the closets.

Read the full story for more on the saga of the stolen Shakespeare.