Goodness I haven’t done one of these in ages!
I hope you all watched Hamlet when it was on the BBC – I think it was robbed at the Olivier Awards. If not, then don’t worry there are some more Shakespearean treats lined up by the BBC this year! There’s Anthony Hopkins as King Lear – which will not only be on telly but then on Amazon Prime so you can avoid the lingering iPlayer countdown guilt… And BBC 4 will be hosting Julius Caesar, the first of Phyllida Lloyd’s wonderful Donmar Warehouse Shakespeare trilogy, with the other two only available on iPlayer so be warned! The former is a whole new film, the latter (I am assuming) is an NT-Live style filming of the productions I saw in 2016.
On the subject of awards – nominations for the Ian Charleson Award for young actors were announced recently, and they show that Shakespeare is still a good route to glory – 8 of the 10 nominations are for Shakespearean performances. Hannah Morrish in Titus was great, and so were both Daniel Ezra and Tamara Lawrence in Twelfth Night – if you have caught any of the other performances please let me know what you thought!
Mark Rylance has been being boringly Oxfordian on the Today Programme – I am trying to forgive him given his staggering talent (and how generous he is with it), but honestly… Luckily The Stage went for a socio-historical put down this time, which is at least a change from reading literary rebuttals…
A few exciting new productions have been announced too – The Young Vic’s “Brass bands and Beyonce” Twelfth Night sounds great, my faves Antic Disposition are doing Much Ado, and the Donmar Warehouse has a fascinating new take on Measure for Measure where the two leads will swap roles (Isabella and Angelo) during performances. Can’t wait!
What’s caught your eye in the Shakespearean world?
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