In Our Time : King Lear

Thanks to Alayne for this link to Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time where they’re apparently discussing King Lear: Melvyn Bragg explores the dramatic themes and history behind one of
Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, “King Lear”. He is joined by Jonathan
Bate, Professor of English Literature at the University of Warwick;
Katherine Duncan-Jones, Tutorial Fellow in English at Somerville College,
Oxford; and Catherine Belsey, Research Professor in English at the
University of Wales, Swansea.
The date on the file suggests that this is the newest episode of the show.  I often subscribe to In Our Time’s podcast feed, but then I fall behind because they hit on some topics I’m just not interested in and eventually I give up.  I’m glad when readers send me good stuff like this that I might otherwise have missed! Downloading now….

He set THE TEMPEST in NAZI GERMANY!

I missed Slings & Arrows the first time around, and I’m very sorry for that.  I’d actually tried to check it out, but I must have watched a bad episode because from where I sat it was all about the politics of running a theatre and I didn’t see much actual Shakespeare content.  So I didn’t make much of an effort to follow up.  Boy, was that a mistake.  A coworker just let me borrow Season 1 on DVD (well, the first three episodes) and I LOVE IT.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, the show revolves around the New Burbage Theatre festival as they go through their productions of Dream, Hamlet, and I’m presuming some others along the way.  There’s some sort of bad history at the place, particularly the director (Oliver) and the former star, Geoffrey.  Well, stuff happens, Geoffrey’s thrown back into the mix to re-open old wounds, and let the fun begin. I think the thing I love the most about the show in what little I’ve seen is that it reinforces what I’ve always said (and thought and hoped) about myself.  When the action on the screen is not about Shakespeare – like the politics between the corporate sponsor and the manager producer guy – I really deeply and truly don’t care.  BUT!  When the talk turns to Shakespeare, when somebody drops a line or a reference or describes a scene or just goes ahead and does a scene?  Lightning bolts shoot up my spine.  Every time.   There’s a scene where they haven’t even begun their table reading of Hamlet, and there’s name cards on all the seats – Bernardo, Horatio, Osric – and even that does it for me. One of the major themes of the show is about stripping away the commoditization of the theatre and getting back to how the words can so deeply impact your life.  Absofrigginlutely, if I do say so myself :).  I can’t wait to get the next set of episodes.  I’m probably going to just go ahead and buy my own copy anyway.

R&J, The Game. On Your Cellphone.

http://kotaku.com/361174/romeo-and-juliet-the-cell-phone-platformer Courtesy of Kotaku (and thanks to Thomas from Games Magazine for the link) we have this new and…strange…idea for a game.  It’s Romeo and Juliet, on your cell phone. “Cool!” you say.  Maybe, maybe not.  It’s actually a platform game – think “jumping over stuff and shooting things that get in your way.”  The plot involves Romeo having to rescue Juliet from a castle tower.  In other words, it has nothing to do with the actual R&J story other than the names and probably some scenery. Maybe it’ll be good, maybe not so much.  Who knows.  If Romeo throws out the occasional quote while jumping up and down on killer mushrooms, I’m there.

Saturday Morning Shakespeare? No

This weekend I brought up a children’s cartoon, Strawberry Shortcake, on Tivo for the kids.  It did not escape my attention that the name of the episode was “The Play’s The Thing.”  Would there actually be a Shakespeare reference worth blogging?  Well, no.  It’s raining out, the friends can’t go outside, so they get some dressup clothes and put on a play.  The play is actually Cinderella.  So as far as I can tell, not a single Shakespeare reference. But I couldn’t let the reference go by.  Somebody stuck it in there, so it’s worth acknowledging.  That’s how we get more.