& Juliet

I went to see this in January and found it a bombastic, breezy blast of a show.

A plague upon you all

Strange time, people, strange times.

I owe you all two reviews – one of &Juliet and one of Upstart Crow, both of which I saw earlier this year, back when going to theatre was still a thing (remember that?). But then things happened, and things happened, and a few more things happened, and here we are – I almost don’t want to write them in case they turn out to be the last actual theatre shows I review.

The very mould and frame

A recent Guardian article on Aardman Animations revealed they had apparently produced a short film about Shakespeare – which was a startling revelation to me as a Shakespeare and an Aardman fan. How had I missed it?!?

A very little googling turned up a version on YouTube and it is a delight – an almost wordless canter through all of the plays with the charm of Aardman and the trappings of traditional Shakespearean productions (the music is a delight). I’m a bit of a quiz nerd and I absolutely loved trying to work out which play was which from the tiny fragments we see. I think I identified Much Ado About Nothing – but it’s much harder to spot than, say Julius Caesar or Titus Andronicus! And I haven’t gone through with a checklist and the pause button to see if they are all included – I’m far too busy marvelling at the skill (both craft and intellectual) that has gone into it.

The youtube link is here – do let me know what your favourite bit is. Lord what fools these mortals be indeed!

I had talk of you last night

Well – not actually last night, but some time ago I had a great talk with Larry Baker of ShakenBakeCast (a great Shakespearean podcast). The episode is available online at the links below.

Beware the ides of March.

I hope you have a better day than poor old Caesar did! I took the opportunity, when recently in Rome, to wander round his stomping ground – the Forum, the actual Rostrum where Mark Anthony made his famous speech (sadly sans ships’ prows), some of the earliest Republican temples in the city. And I’ve thrown in a contemporaneous portrait of the man himself…

The man himself

Early Republican temples

The Forum

The Rostrum

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.

He speaks at random VI

It’s your usual round-up of the weird and wacky (and vaguely Shakespeare-related)…

Honest kindness

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:

He speaks at random V

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…

Keep a gamester from the dice

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.*