Bad Hamlet

It’s all Shakespeare at the moment; inevitable, I guess. And so to the Cockpit Theatre in London, a community theatre tucked away off Lissom Grove, to see a Hamlet that we seldom see – the ‘bad quarto’ Hamlet. There are three different surviving versions of Shakespeare’s play, much to the confusion and secret joy ofRead More

Alluding to Shakespeare

The film programmers among you (real and imaginary) will have noticed that 2016 sees the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and there is an obligation to show something of the man’s works on your screens. With a heavy sigh you turn to the obvious Branaghs and Oliviers, with just maybe Forbidden Planet (perhaps the best-knownRead More

The Bard is back

One of the first posts that I wrote on this blog back in 2012 was one announcing the closure of BardBox, a blog devoted to online Shakespeare videos which I had established in 2008. The plan was to cut back on the several websites that I was managing and to concentrate the writing on aRead More

Henry Four 2

I went to the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury at the weekend; my first visit inside the city’s new theatre. There has long been a Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury – I first went there in the early 1970s to see an Agatha Christie play, when the theatre was on St Margaret’s Street. Then it was rebuiltRead More

Staging the world

But els in deep of night when drowsines Hath lockt up mortal sense, then listen I To the celestial Sirens harmony, That sit upon the nine enfolded Sphears … John Milton, ‘Arcades’ (1634) I spent a great three hours yesterday afternoon at the British Museum’s exhibition Shakespeare: Staging the World. It’s been their blockbuster CulturalRead More