Ok, here’s the game.  You’ve been handed the DVD of a Shakespeare movie you’ve never seen.  You’re also about to get on a plane to a foreign country and won’t be able to watch it for months because of regional issues.  So before you go, you pop it in and bring up your favorite scene, because you want to watch the best 5 minutes of the play. What play, and what scene?  You like beginnings, endings, or something in the middle?  You like a tragedy or a comedy?

http://www.executedtoday.com/2008/05/29/1593-john-penry-wales-puritan-shakespeare-christopher-marlowe/ There’s a name I’d never heard before : John Penry.  Executed in 1593, the “greatest protestant martyr of his land” is interesting to us for this little cross-reference:

The day after Penry’s execution, star English playwright Christopher Marlowe was killed in a fray whose timing some find a bit suspicious. Some enthusiasts think Marlowe faked his death and went on to write Shakespeare under a pen name. And if he did that, his confederates would have needed a body to pass off as Marlowe’s … the body, perhaps, of a man of Marlowe’s age and class who’d just been hanged a couple of miles up the road.

Indeed! 🙂

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23775385-23109,00.html I remember blogging ages ago about the Friends of Shakespeare’s Church trying to raise money to save Shakespeare’s burial place.  Apparently they’ve got enough now to proceed, although it sounds like they still need more.  And no, they’re not moving his bones.

http://www.bookdecor.com/hand-picked.html If the only reason you’re into Shakespeare is so your friends see high quality literature on your bookshelf when they come over, here’s a solution for you. Book Decor sells “books by the yard” to use as decoration.  Seems like there’s something to be said here about judging a person by their book covers? (Note, books are not in English and I have no idea if there’s anything vaguely Shakespeare related in there.  You don’t get to pick the books, only the decorative style.) [Found via http://www.boingboing.net]