Shakespeare, Harry Potter and Me, Gehayi

[gehayi]

I looked over the Shakespeare meme that's going around, but the problem with that is that it presumes that you've seen the plays both on stage and in the movies. I have never seen a Shakespeare play on stage or in the movies. The only adaptation of a Shakespeare play that I know I've seen is West Side Story. I've only ever read two plays for

Comments

[aunty_marion]

Shakespeare can be a love it/loathe it kind of thing, and not just in general, but for individual plays as well. I'm lucky in that my mother was an English teacher before she married, so we had a copy of Shakespeare in the house, plus we were given Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare fairly early on. And our local theatre, which was then about a mile from its current site, and has always been known locally as 'The Vic', did a Shakespear play every year, usually one that was on the O-Level or A-Level syllabus, so I did get to see quite a few of the plays that way.

There are still probably more of his plays that I *haven't* seen than those I *have*, though. But at least I've seen most of the more common/popular ones, one way or another, as well as some of the slightly rarer ones (I still fondly remember Coriolanus).

I'm not so keen on the historicals, probably because as I know what the 'real' history was, I tend to twitch at his version of things; I have to suspend disbelief a lot.

What I'd really like to see is Richard III done in the Jasper Fforde way, with audience participation. Now that would be fun!

[gehayi]

I was given a copy of Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare too, among others--as I said, my parents didn't object to prose adaptations, but to the plays and poetry.

What I'd really like to see is Richard III done in the Jasper Fforde way, with audience participation.

Okay, I've read the Thursday Next series and the Nursery Crimes series...but I don't know what you mean by seeing Richard III done the Jasper Fforde way, unless you're going to introduce an agent from Jurisfiction into the plot.

[aunty_marion]

In the Thursday Next books, one popular entertainment in Swindon is going to see Richard III, but people from the audience get to play the parts, all the audience knows the script (and the backchat), and many go in costume.

Sort of like a Shakespearean version of Rocky Horror Show...

[lareinenoire]

Oh, that would be incredibly fun! Actually, I think they tried it in Swindon once when there was a one-day convention of sorts for Fforde, and a good friend of mine apparently knew all the callbacks off by heart.

And my old housemate and I used to amuse ourselves by randomly shouting 'When is the winter of our discontent?' at one another, thereby prompting the other one to launch into the speech while the former did all the callbacks.

[aunty_marion]

They did, yes - somewhere I think I've got the newspaper/magazine cutting about it!

[gehayi]

What's backchat?

[aunty_marion]

Heckling, but on-topic, as it were - like the shouting "When is the winter of our discontent?" so that Richard apparently answers with "Now is the winter...". And making horse noises for "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!", and so on.