There was a famous commercial on British television before the advertising of tobacco was banned in the UK media. The clip showed a decapitated Sir Francis Drake in gorgeous Elizabethan dress, carrying his smiling head under his arm. He was placing a cigar between the lips and the head was sighing with satisfaction. Bach’s ‘Ode [...]
It’s interesting to reflect on how deeply and broadly Shakespeare infiltrates our culture. He is everywhere in history in some context or other (something we discussed in our Shakespeare in America article). On Wednesday, 9th April, 1865, five days before he was murdered, Abraham Lincoln was still celebrating the end of the Civil War with [...]
Who was the most influential literary writer in our Western Culture? The mind springs immediately to Shakespeare. But there was a far more influential writer, who produced only one surviving book. He’s an anonymous writer but he wrote the Gospel of St Mark some fifteen hundred years before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. We don’t know who [...]
An article on the NoSweatShakespeare site outlines the various claims of the portraits that vie for the distinction of being representations of Shakespeare. Just as with Jesus, we all have a mental image of Shakespeare. Although we know that Jesus didn’t look like the conventional pictures of him, with blue eyes, very light skin and [...]
An interesting challenge to readers may be to ask them to think of any life situation that Shakespeare didn’t write about. There are so many things in modern life that haven’t changed since his time: we still have wars and dictatorships, colonial oppression, slavery, military coups, and religious persecution. We have what seems to be [...]
If you’re ever going to be involved in a production of Macbeth you should be very careful, and take precautions. Remember, you’ve been warned. There’s a curse on performances of the play. The first thing you should never do is mention the play’s title in the theatre. You should always refer to it as ‘The [...]
In the rush of modern life there is little time for reflection but it’s sometimes relaxing to pause occasionally to reflect on some single instances of Shakespeare’s genius. Here is a short soliloquy from Macbeth worthy of attention. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last [...]
In the year in which the English speaking world is celebrating the four hundredth year of the King James Authorised bible it’s interesting to reflect on what a period 1604, when the work started, to 1611, when it was published, was in England. It’s almost impossible for us to imagine seven years of such literary [...]
What would Shakespeare make of our modern world? If he were suddenly to appear in London as a time traveler to the future he would find himself in the middle of a street crowd. The London of his time had a population of about twenty thousand but here he would see that number of people [...]
It’s quite common for Londoners to attend the theatre in Stratford upon Avon and also, most Americans visiting London make the journey to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. It’s a hundred and two miles, an easy trip that takes about two hours. You just drive straight up the M40. Or you could go by train, about [...]