I often come across the question ‘Why is there so little of Christmas in the works of Shakespeare?’. In all of his works, Shakespeare uses the word ‘Christmas’ only three times. Well the answer is simple, really. The way we celebrate that jolly season is effusive, full and sumptuous, but its roots are in the [...]
We’ve teamed up with the most excellent Master of Verona (aka David Blixt) to trade blog posts this week. Here’s his take on one of his all time favorite Shakespeare moments. Jump into the debate and tell us yours in the comments section at the bottom of the page. I was recently considering my favorite [...]
What have Hamlet, Tony Blair, H.G. Wells, David Frost, the Emperor Nero, Brian Clough, the White Rabbit and Kenneth Williams got in common? This is an easy one: they’ve all been played by the flavour of the month actor, Michael Sheen. The Welsh actor has played Tony Blair in three films – The Deal, The [...]
All over the news the last week is Jesse Anderson, a software developer in Reno, Nevada, who’s created a computer program that will type letters at a very fast rate. He claims that, in time, those random letters will type the complete works of Shakespeare accurately, word for word, and that, in fact, his program [...]
I wouldn’t go as far as to equate those who deny Shakespeare as the author of the Shakespeare plays with holocaust deniers, but both categories beggar belief. There is no doubt about either –the Nazi genocide of the Jews and the fact that William Shakespeare wrote the plays. The film Anonymous, which has just been [...]
‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ is one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines. It refers to the political and sexual corruption that surrounds Hamlet at the court of Elsinore. Humourist blogger Marc C Miller tells us that he’s found Shakespeare’s source for that – an old sardine dumping ground near the castle. He [...]
When I was at school, a long long time ago, an all boys’ school, we had a lot of fun in English by nudging each other and giggling behind our books whenever a word or phrase appeared that suggested anything sexual at all. Things like ‘He tossed and turned all night’ and ‘the soldiers [...]
Helen Mirren plays the role of Prospero in a new film of The Tempest. In a recent interview with the Huffington Post she said: ‘I played the man role. Shakespeare very often had boys dressed as girls but not so often women dressed as men, but I play it as a woman. I don’t play [...]
One question that will never be on any quizmaster’s list is ‘Who was Shakespeare?’ The reason is that it’s too easy. It’s like the question ‘What is the usual accompaniment in England to deep fried, battered fish?’ If you don’t know the answer then you’ve never been in England. And yet the 2007 winner of [...]
I read an article recently about a literature reading in Greenwich, New York, by a group going by the name of ‘Naked Girls Reading.’ The women come onstage in kimonos, led by the delightfully named Nasty Canasta and Gal Friday. They then drop their kimonos and begin their reading, which includes passages from Shakespeare. It’s [...]