The Duchess of Malfi - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie (Williams, Collins Sons & Co Ltd. 1976) uses the lines Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young as the novel's central refrain.

• A fragment of Scene 2, Act 4 of the play, with Struan Rodger as Ferdinand and Donald Burton as Bosola, is shown in the 1987 BBC TV film version of Agatha Christie's detective novel Sleeping Murder.

• Cover Her Face by P. D. James (initial copyright 1962) uses the first part of the quote as the title and as a comment made by the first witness on the scene of a young murdered woman.

• The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James centers around an aging actress who plans to perform The Duchess of Malfi in a Victorian castle theatre. The novel takes its title from T. S. Eliot's famous characterization of Webster's work in his poem 'Whispers of Immortality'.

• Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice uses the lines Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young, as a quote from Lestat to his vampire child, Claudia.

• Stephen Fry's novel The Stars' Tennis Balls takes its title from Bosola's line in the play.

• Hotel by Mike Figgis involves a film crew trying to make a Dogme film of The Duchess of Malfi. The actors playing the Duchess, Antonio and Bosola are played by Saffron Burrows, Max Beesley and Heathcote Williams. The play is abbreviated and made into a 'McMalfi' script by Heathcote Williams.

• In the Oxford University Film Foundation's 1982 film Privileged, the students produce and rehearse lines from the play.

• Echo & the Bunnymen mentioned this play along with John Webster and The White Devil in their song "My White Devil" on their Porcupine album.

• Volume 2 of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time includes a visit to a performance of the play, where the minor character Moreland is in love with the actress playing Julia.

• On the program I Kiss Your Shadow, the final episode of the 1961 television series Bus Stop (of which author Stephen King named this specific episode as "...the single most frightening story ever done on TV"), one of the main characters gives a rare copy of The Duchess of Malfi (that he purchased at auction) to his sister as a wedding gift.