The new map with the augmentation of the Indies

I am off to America in three weeks – which I am really looking forward to, but which may put a bit of a crimp in my Shakespeare obsession.

Grant me the carving of my name.

You might expect me to have written something about the re-interment of Richard III which has taken place today (all this week, really). After all, Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and most quotable characters – as well as being a favourite of mine.

Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse

Well I hope wherever you were you had a better view of the eclipse than I did. In Shakespeare’s time they were taken for signs and portents – now we know that they are just a beautiful coincidence of the fact that the sun is about 400 times bigger in diameter than the moon, but 400 times further away.

I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly

It’s Shakespeare Week this week, a UK initiative to get primary school children (that’s aged 4-11) to engage with Shakespeare.

There’s lots going on – a rather fun-looking child-acted Henry V, a live screening of the RSC’s Love’s Labours Lost into schools, Shakespearean writing at the Mary Rose, and an astonishing range of events in libraries up and down the country. If you have children, or can pass as a ten-year-old, I’d recommend checking out the website here. I am rather jealous!

It’s got me thinking about my earliest Shakespearean memories – the ones I can place.

Much Ado About Nothing

28^th February 2015

I have spoken often enough about my love for Much Ado About Nothing (and the number of times I have been to see it already) that it should have been obvious that pleasing me with a play I knew so well was a difficult task. I very much wanted this production to succeed – I liked the women-in-the-military angle it promised, (as shown in the picture below which I nabbed off their website and is the front cover of their programme) – but it didn’t quite manage to deliver. I think this was in part because they didn’t take it quite far enough – you could only tell Beatrice was meant to be in the military because she wore camouflage (you got no other hint from her demeanour or attitude), and Hero was about the only member of the cast not in the army – why not? What was it meant to signify?

Reading Between The Lines promo picture

Of what colour it please God

I owe you all a review of Much Ado – which will come shortly, I promise!

In the meantime, I am out and about enjoying the wonderfully changeable British weather. Of course sunshine and rain in quick succession (and even sometimes together) can only mean one thing – rainbows – surely the most fleeting and most individual of weather. After all, as it’s made of light, it’s physically impossible for someone else to see the same rainbow you do…

A Comedy of Errors

21st February 2015

Thanks to disasters with plumbing, shopping, and flights, I really needed a bit of escapism by the time I went to see the HandleBards*. Thank God they delivered, with a madcap romp through A Comedy of Errors (coming in at a very lean 84 minutes by my watch), in a vault under Waterloo station, and with a cast of only four.