For he himself is subject to his birth

Happy possibly birthday William Shakespeare!

King John

Wow wow wow. ThIs performance really blew me away. The Globe put together this production in conjunction with a theatre in Northampton  (Royal & Derngate) to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, even though the play has astonishingly little to do with that aspect of King John’s reign. So it used what I am coming to see as the distinctive Globe feel to it – traditional costuming, great use of music, and colour-blind casting.

    

To tell this tale of mine

Hello everyone. Apologies for the long delay – real life has rather overtaken me at the moment! Normal service should be resumed towards the end of the month – and in the meantime, I owe you all a review of King John, which I saw last weekend.

In the short term, let’s talk about this random book I found in Waterstones…

The tag line reads “We know how it ended – but how did it begin?”

I am not going to talk about how good it is because I haven’t read it yet (that blasted real life again) but I am intrigued by its very existence. I have certainly encountered prequels and sequels before – Bond seems to have had a very good run recently, what with the Young Bond novels and the astonishing number of so-called “serious” novelists who have taken on the mantle, and look at the infinite slew of Sherlock Holmes stories – but never for Shakespeare. If this is a whole genre I am missing, let me know at once!

The book isn’t in iambic pentameter, but then neither is most of the play. Somewhat more impressively, out of a few lines of dialogue the author has managed to tell a tale which apparently takes in the Armada and Verona, as well as Messina. I look forward to telling you if it’s any good…