Antony and Cleopatra at Shakespeare's Globe

Reviewed by Max Swinnerton

Last Friday, the U8 English cohort went on a trip to watch the latest production at The Globe: Antony and Cleopatra. Having studied the text in the Lower Eighth we were excited to be able to finally see Shakespeare’s words delivered onstage, and gain some extra A03* marks that had been lacking throughout the previous year. However, as we made the pilgrimage into the city, the group learned that this would be no ordinary production: the play was bilingual. The Roman characters would perform the original English and the Egyptians would act in British Sign Language. Even after Ms McLaughlin told us that we had standing tickets, and after reading a review by Time Out magazine which described it as ‘cumbersome’, we were ready to go in with an open mind. However, having now watched it and having had a week to digest, it’s safe to say the message behind the production fell flat.

The Winter's Tale - an introduction

Mr Anthony

NB: The following essay contains plot spoilers regarding the play’s ending. 
 
The Winter’s Tale is a play about a man who believes a lie of his own making and is outraged when others won’t believe it too. Leontes’s confidence in his wife’s infidelity is, unlike Othello’s, entirely self-generated; indeed, Emilia’s famed description of jealousy as 'a monster begot upon itself, born on itself' is more fitting of Leontes’s condition than that of Othello, who requires three acts of careful priming by Iago before exploding with the ferocity Leontes achieves in his first scene. The refusal of Leontes’s court to support the false narrative of Hermione’s adultery reveals a political microclimate (unusual in Jacobean theatre) devoid of sycophants and schemers, devoted instead to truth and plain speaking.

King Lear

King Lear by William Shakespeare

Introduced by Mr Anthony

King Lear begins and ends with a cautionary note on the dangers of speaking. Cordelia, realising that the currency of language has been debased by her sisters’ inflated rhetoric, refuses to extemporise on her love for Lear and instead explains that it is Goneril and Regan who have used language to say 'nothing'. At the play’s close, Edgar advises those still standing to 'speak what we feel, not what we ought to say', reminding us that language is always performative, that social context often strangles self-expression, and that the spoken word is, like Wilde’s truth, 'rarely pure and never simple'. 

And who would know this better than a community of aristocrats knelt anxiously at the feet of a king whose capriciousness precedes him? In this, Shakespeare was merely reflecting the mechanics of the Stewart court, an obsequious sequence of meta-events in which courtiers were repeatedly called upon to demonstrate their proficiency in what they 'ought to say', in exchange for patronage and influence. James I was notorious for promoting handsome male favourites, men such as Robert Carr and George Villiers, who publicly flattered the king; for his efforts the previously cash-strapped Carr was gifted Sherbourne Castle and the post of Lord Chamberlain, whilst Villiers (when Carr fell out of favour) was made Earl of Buckingham and referred to by the monarch as 'my sweet child and wife'. When Elizabeth I’s one-time favourite Sir Walter Raleigh married without telling her, he was banished from court and had to wait five years before the queen consented to see him again.

Titus: Why Now?

Next week's school play is Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.  In today's post, Mr Broughton offers an introduction to his version of the tragedy: you can also watch a new trailer for the production here.  

‘A heap of rubbish’ was Edward Ravenscroft’s description of the play, although he was happy enough to create from it one of the most faithful Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare’s work, one which enjoyed huge popularity for over fifty years.

Why read fiction?

Sometimes we read only for pleasure – and that’s enough. Most recently I read The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope for precisely this reason. It’s a brilliant, sometimes scathing, sometimes exuberant satire of polite society. Tongue in cheek, fast and loose, it takes you on a rambunctious ride, and along the way you encounter a morally bankrupt group of high society miscreants. In short, Trollope is like Dickens - but racier.

Happy Birthday, Shakespeare!

Next Monday, April 23rd, it will be 454 years since the birth of William Shakespeare.

Although we don't know for certain when Shakespeare was born, records of his baptism on 26th April, 1564 survive, and so a birth-date slightly earlier doesn't seem implausible, even if it may have originated in a clerical error which confused the writer's date of death - 23rd April - with his date of birth. The convenient coincidence that April 23rd is also St George's Day seems to have strengthened the tradition, so England can celebrate its greatest playwright and its patron saint simultaneously.

In today's blog post, Theo Mahon explains why he thinks Shakespeare is still an important writer for today's world.

Measure for Measure

Next week's school play is Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.  Mr Anthony introduces the play, and explains some of the thoughts behind his production, which updates the play to 1980s London.
 

Measure for Measure is a play about a man who starts a fire in order to demonstrate his skill in putting it out. As a politician the Duke is conceited, idle and capricious (as well as being a compulsive liar), more concerned with re-igniting public awe at his absolute majesty than with restoring the fractured judicial system that his own negligence has allowed to crumble. As such, in a PR stunt of notable modernity, he temporarily absconds from his state, overlooks the uniquely qualified Escalus as replacement, and instead appoints a politically inexperienced junior, Angelo, to flounder in his place.

A* for Ian McEwan's Nutshell?

Ian McEwan's latest novel, Nutshell, re-works Shakespeare's Hamlet, from an unusual point of view.  Here's Mr O'Keeffe's response. 

Well, Ian, what can I say? You’ve done it again – out smarted your clever class-mates and dazzled your teacher with a real tour-de-force.

Your classmates chose a more predictable approach. Many wrote as Gertrude (the closet scene being a particular favourite). Some opted for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, despite my warning that this had been very successfully tackled by a former student some years ago. There were a few Horatios, a couple of gravediggers, an Osric, a Laertes, and several Claudiuses. One smart-arse chose Yorick’s skull and another decided to be the arras.

But you, Ian, have outdone them all. You have outsmarted the smartest.

Shakespeare 400

Tomorrow - 23rd April - marks 400 years since Shakespeare's death, and launches a year long celebration of the writer's life and work.  As the playwright was reputedly born on the same day on which he later died, it would also be his 452nd birthday. 

Here at the book blog, we decided to celebrate the occasion by inviting SPS teachers to nominate their favourite play, favourite character and favourite line from Shakespeare's works.

Movember