Category: The Tempest

The 2018 Shakespeare Top 10

Forget the Oscars, here are some winners that REALLY matter to me …

BH Ardens
Not – quite – my collection of Ardens … soon, soon!

We HATE lists, don’t we?

Except, actually we bloody love them, if it’s something we’re interested in.

No, really.

That said, the last thing we want is a list that agrees with our perceptions – the dopamine rush of validation is very short-lived compared to the opportunity to passionately argue our disagreement.  We LOVE subjective opinions.  Trust me – my wonderfully fulfilling University years were full of essays arguing the toss – why, for example:

  • Dracula should not be judged for his ‘special dietary requirements’, whereas Van Helsing and his bunch are vindictive bastards;
  • we ought to respect Edward Hyde for his refreshing honesty, as opposed to Henry Jekyll‘s hypocrisy; or
  • Ursula K. Le Guin’s (RIP) The Left Hand of Darkness, whilst a superb book, had no place in the Science Fiction module

You get the picture:  English Lit is a tailor-made subject for those who are argumentative and prepared to do the spadework to back-up their cockiness …

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PTS 10/062: Wakey, Wakey …

I took you for granted for so long: I’m sorry …

 

BH MND11 76090
image:  Abel Guerrero

Being a Production Photographer has its moments – this is my favourite image from The Dream in Cambridge, 2012.

Ponytail Shakespeare read-through:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V.

One of the things about a project like this read-through it that it gives you a certain discipline.  In this case, although my timetable may be only notionally followed, it has forced me to read or re-read plays that I might not have, otherwise.  Occasionally (Love’s Labour’s Lost, I’m looking at YOU), my reservations have been fully justified. On other occasions, this new-found steel in my soul has been intensely rewarding.  I might not otherwise have read the Henry VI plays, for example.  Or, indeed, re-read The Dream in any hurry (believing I knew it ‘well enough’), and that would have been a shame …

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PTS 10/061: What’s Good for the Goose …

Bottoming out THAT relationship …

BH Paton_Titania
JN Paton

PTS read-through:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV

Not for the first time in my read-through, the main thing I want to know is: ‘did they, or didn’t they?’

In this I was egged on by Cedric Watts, though I needed little encouragement, in truth.  Still, it’s convenient to blame him for my prurience.  If my answer is the same as Watts’: ‘of course!’, it begs a second question on which we differ:

‘Does it matter?’

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PTS 10/060: The Gods DO play dice …

Act III places us at the game table, jostling Shakespeare for a view of the goings-on in that VERY busy wood …

BH Discworld Gods
‘No smiting.  Not up here.  It is the rules.  You want fight, you get your humans fight his humans. [1]
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III: with apologies to Albert Einstein [2]

On reflection, it seems odd that as a child experiencing / undergoing / suffering a Catholic education, once a year, on our ‘Saint’s Day’ –  St Martin de Porres: 03 November – we were treated to a film in the school hall which was invariably a Ray Harryhausen epic.

Not that I want to complain.  I loved them, and still do.

They fostered an appetite for the ancient world – for Perseus, Theseus, Hercules, Jason … any number of  heroes and their associated monsters.  And, like the Book of Genesis, they’ve proved to be invaluable in teaching Literature.

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Quote of the Week: 19 February 2018 (#29)

“Is black so base a hue?” Aaron, Titus Andronicus, Act IV scene ii …

BH devils-witches-dance
– back cover of Scott’s book –

AF Scott, Witch, Spirit, Devil, (White Lion Publishing:  London, 1974)

Whilst Black History Month isn’t celebrated in the UK until October, this is a bit of an international blog: about half of you are visitors from the US, and another quarter or so from elsewhere outside the UK – thank you, by the way!

So now, whilst I’m reading Scott’s book, feels like the time to look at this …

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PTS 10/059: I DO Believe in Fairies …

Puck and Ariel are first cousins – mischievous, not malicious …

BH cottingley fairies
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was taken in by the Cottingley Fairies.  I might have been, too …

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II

“You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” […]

“And so,” he went on good-naturedly, “there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl.”

“Ought to be? Isn’t there?”

“No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”1

Discussing Act I, I alluded to the fact that my suspension of disbelief was more taxed by Helena‘s actions than by the whole idea of a fairy realm – how strange is that?

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What’s in a name, Google?

She sounded unimpressed. Hurt, even. I backtracked swiftly.

BH JF SEBASTIAN

I live alone, and lead quite a solitary existence, truth be told.

But, and I suspect it’s a sign of madness, like JF Sebastian in Bladerunner, I have a number of inanimate buddies who I’ve named.  I even say hello to them when I get in, sometimes, in a post-post-post-modern, ironically jovial way.  Take my fridge, for example …

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PTS 09/051: Women Weaken Legs (and Brains, too)

Lesson 1: Books, no matter how interesting, are not a girlfriend substitute …

BH Rocky and Micky
‘You lay off that pet shop dame.  Women weaken legs!’ ~ Mickey (Burgess Meredith)

PTS read through:  Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I

It feels appropriate to arrive at this play in the month when it seems you’re not a functioning member of society if you don’t add some kind of punishing denial to the post-Christmas blues:  Dry January, the unappetising-sounding Veganuary, or in my case, the Walk 1,000 Miles in 2018 challenge (already behind schedule).  Personally, I think we’ve enough to cope with, waiting for things to warm up and the nights to become appreciably longer.

Nevertheless, this is how the play opens – with a preposterous resolution by the foolish King of Navarre and three of his intimates to ‘abjure the rough magic’ of the fair sex. Unlike Rocky’s trainer Mickey, they’re worried about the intellectual rather than physical effects that women may have on them

I give them a maximum of ten minutes, stage time …

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PTS 08/045: Oh, no it isn’t! Oh, yes it is …

You just can’t tell some people that you wouldn’t HAVE Blackadder without Shakespeare …


Ponytail Shakespeare read-through The Comedy of Errors: Act I scene I

‘Which is it today?’
‘The Comedy of Errors.‘
‘Ugh!’
‘It’s about two sets of twins, separated at birth, who find themselves-‘
‘Stop! Enough!’
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I’ve … seen things …

It often takes something (we consider) sub-human to remind us of our humanity …

BH blade runner

‘… you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Time to die.’

Not that you needed me to complete the speech, I dare say … I’m also guessing you want to watch it again (I had to), so here it is.

The weekend brings an exciting reward for my ‘holiday’ week’s hard marking. On consecutive nights I’ll be watching Bladerunner: The Final Cut, and then Bladerunner 2049.  And I’ve got my tattered copy of Philip K Dick‘s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep‘ (1968) out – the first non-Shakespeare/EMP book I have read in weeks, or perhaps even months …

Yet there is, because there always is, an opportunity for me to connect to Shakespeare.

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