Wimbledon started today. Come on Tim!*
The tennis of Shakespeare’s time was an altogether different beast to lawn tennis. Played indoors in courts where pitched roofs are an integral part of the playing field, it is an incredibly fast game with the most complicated set of rules, which is why it is rarely filmed, and probably why lawn tennis is more popular in general.
I’ve just finished reading Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, a wonderful post-apocalyptic novel with a strong Shakespearean bent – it starts with a performance of King Lear and much of the plot concerns a travelling orchestra and troupe of players who put on the works of Shakespeare.
As well as being the first night of Measure for Measure at the Globe it was my first time as a groundling – which gives you a rather different perspective…
The stage is at the perfect height for leaning on, too.
The Folger library is home to 82 first folios – one third of all the surviving copies* and the largest single collection in the world. So naturally I made a beeline there on my first day in Washington…
The Folger Library
I was reading an article in the Guardian yesterday with claimed it was Kindness Day – I haven’t found anything else to verify it, but what a lovely and underrated thing to celebrate! Almost immediately my mind ran to Portia’s famous speech:
The release date for Bill (see previous post) has been pushed back to August, so I’m having to wait with bated breath a little longer for some comedy biopic Shakespearean stylings. In the meantime I am making do with Horrible Histories, a guilty pleasure. In case you haven’t encountered it, please enjoy my favourite song – the RAF pilots. What’s that, you say? It’s not Shakespeare related? OK, have the Cleopatra one instead…
After my luck in the ballot for Coriolanus tickets last year – which kick-started this whole venture, I am trying my hand again at the ballot for £10 Hamlet tickets. And thanks to an overdeveloped sense of fair play, I am sharing this with you all while the ballot is still open and you can sign up yourselves – the link is here.*
I may have spoken too soon in my wish for that comic two-hander, for lo and behold it is reproduced – and claimed as “undoubtedly one of the most important [works] of his career” in this week’s Country Life.
desperatelyseekingcymbeline 