I overheard him and his practices

Having nothing else planned for the Bank Holiday weekend, I headed off to the Globe (well, I was really on a trip to Konditor and Cook for Curly Wurly cake, but it’s on the way and feels far more virtuous). There’ll doubtless be more to follow – particularly on the costumes – today I want to talk about rehearsals.

A silken pie

It’s depressingly autumnal at the moment, isn’t it? All that rain and it feels more like November than August (at least it isn’t as dark as November). So instead of a summer fun I’m in the mood for the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness*.

The precious jewel of thy home

What with the Guardian talking about DruidShakespeare and Twitter’s #ShakespeareSunday focussing on the Plantagenet plays, I have been revisiting Richard II. I haven’t seen it yet in my ten-year tenure, but I saw a powerful version with Ralph Fiennes as Richard many moons ago, and of course I have watched the spectacular (literally) Hollow Crown version with Ben Wishaw in the lead. There has been a recent run of famous faces taking on the role – I hope it continues.

Report speaks goldenly of his profit

I keep catching the IKEA ad for beds. You know the one – Helen Mirren recites Prospero’s famous “Our revels now are ended” speech as a woman falls through clouds. It is, I think, surprisingly lovely (I still remember an early IKEA ad with an insanely catchy song urging us all to “Chuck out that chintz”, not to mention the one correlating furniture and sexual habits*) so this is a definite step up… In case you haven’t seen it, you can catch it in all its glory here.

The time of night when Troy was set on fire

I hope you caught some of the amazing and awesome Iliad live reading yesterday. The Iliad is such Ur-literature that I don’t have to (or at least don’t intend to) apologise for talking about it here*.

He speaks at random VII

Some big ticket Shakespeare items recently, and I don’t just mean Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet. And I am definitely not bitter I don’t have tickets. Not at all.

His word is more than the miraculous harp.

I’ve been very quiet recently – I’ve just come back from the rather spectacular Wilderness festival in Oxfordshire. So I’m afraid this is a bit of a “what I did on my holidays” post.