Blogging Shakespeare

The RSC’s  Such Tweet Sorrow, Comedy Central’s Fakespeare, and the meme blog Shakespeare Obsessed Sparrow: these are just a few of the manifestations of Shakespeare in the first decade of the 21st Century that viewers, listeners, tweeters, and surfers can experience. In our investigations to locate Shakespeare’s works and influence we encountered the outlandish, diverse, […]

I wanted so badly for it to be PERFECT – expected it would be after the BBC’s Richard II! – but oh dear, a miss is as good as a mile. Henry IV? YES. Hotspur & Kate? YES. Supporting cast? YES. Falstaff? Um… Hal? Er… Hal was great for the serious stuff (his showdown with […]

This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen.   Henry V, dir. Thea Sharrock, 21 July 2012 on BBC 2 By Pete Orford Hmm. Henry V was always going to be a bit of a deal breaker here. While […]

This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen.   Henry IV – Part 2, dir. Richard Eyre, 14 July 2012 on BBC 2 By Will Sharpe We begin, again, in the tavern – this production’s spiritual home – […]

This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen. Henry IV – Part 1, dir. Richard Eyre, 7 July 2012 on BBC 2 By Will Sharpe It was perhaps fitting, tuning in to this instalment of the BBC’s Hollow […]

The first tweet I saw when I logged on this morning was that Dame Judi Dench, C.H. had just read a Shakespeare sonnet on the B.B.C. Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme. I’d missed it but wanted immediately to know which one she’d read. Her voice is exactly well suited to these poems: intimate, multi-textured, lyrical. Dame […]