William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the most influential playwrights in history, and his plays have been performed and studied for centuries. From the timeless tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to the hilarious antics of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s plays continue to captivate audiences around the world. Whether you’re a fan of tragedy, comedy, or romance, there’s a Shakespeare play for everyone. So why not revisit these timeless classics and discover the magic of Shakespeare for yourself?
Who’s excited for the return of Shakespeare Uncovered?
WNET’sShakespeare Uncovered returns to PBS for its third and final season on Friday, October 12!
The series, which covers the fascinating history behind Shakespeare’s greatest plays, will feature six installments hosted by celebrated names such as Helen Hunt, F. Murray Abraham, Romola Garai, Brian Cox, Simon Russell Beale,and Sir Antony Sher.
Each episode will tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s famous works and will investigate “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Measure for Measure,” “Julius Caesar,” “The Winter’s Tale,” and “Richard III.”
The show will air Fridays, October 12-26 on PBS (check local listings) and stream the following day at pbs.org/shakespeareuncovered and on PBS apps.
A funny thing happened last week that really put the Geek in Shakespeare Geek.
It all started with a Reddit post. A user wrote that he had a copy of the 1997 Folio Society edition of King Lear, where the text is taken from the 1986 Oxford Shakespeare edition of The Complete Works edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor.
Under “The Persons of the Play”, I see “Earl of Gloucester”. I turn the page, and the very first stage direction says “Enter the Earl of Kent, the Duke of Gloucester…”
He is referred to as the Earl of Gloucester only in the list of characters, from what I can tell. Thereafter, he is always referred to as the Duke of Gloucester.
At first, I misunderstood and thought he was saying that Gloucester is always Duke, so it was listing him as Earl on the title page was the mistake. My error was pointed out to me – Gloucester is never Duke, always Earl – so I offered to get some first-hand input on the situation.
And by first-hand, I meant just go ahead and ask Sir Stanley Wells. Because why not? Twitter’s amazing sometimes. We follow each other and have corresponded online on some other occasions.
Because I do love copying Bardfilm so much, and I saw that he published his review of Jo Nesbø’s Macbeth (for which, as he likes to say, q.v.), not only did I decide to publish mine, but I just went ahead and copy-pasted that ø character from his site instead of trying to figure out how to do it myself.
Seriously, though, I have been reading this one and did plan to review it this week, the timing is a coincidence. (The ø thing is totally real, though.)
This book is part of the Hogarth series of modern novelizations of Shakespeare. The only other one I’d read was Hag-seed (for which, q.v.! it’s fun to say!) which I’d been told was the best of the bunch, and I didn’t love it.
I think Macbeth is a better book, but at the same time it left me very, “Meh.”
Here’s a funny story that offers a glimpse into how I find some of the more unusual links I post here.
There’s a random Friends episode on in the background. They make a reference to a fictional character who’d performed in a Macbeth movie. They then pin it in time by saying, “They showed the trailer before Jackass.”
I find this weird 2003 version that is supposedly set in a surreal fantasy world where reality keeps changing.
Random browsing gets me interested in whatever happened to the Romeo and Juliet: The War movie that was supposed to be coming out.
It’s still in development so IMDB won’t let me see any details. I go googling and find this Variety article from 2015. There’s a comment on the bottom of that article from a guy named John Schnurr saying, “I just filmed this same plot, please don’t make this movie.”
<shrug> Sounds like a unique enough name. Found him! I look for Shakespeare credits (amid the pro-wrestling credits, strangely enough).
Sure enough, look what I found! I give you… Romeo 3000.
This looks *so* bad. I don’t mean the acting or the special effects. Got to love everybody rocking the Borg eyepiece, the oddly out of place steampunk villain, and Romeo with the Winter Soldier arm. Those are all straight out of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (oooo, the irony of making things sound sci-fi by adding 3000 at the end….)
No, I’m talking about the painful “This sounds like Shakespeare” writing. In the trailer alone:
“This be the year 3000…”
“This be not the story of star-cross’d lovers…”
“Romeo be the last of his line.”
“Romeo, Romeo, where arst thou Romeo?”
I’ll give them this, it looks like they sure went for it with whatever budget they had. It’s actually a good trailer, with a nice quality video that shows it wasn’t shot on a potato. The fight scenes look like they could be fun. Everybody’s acting their damnedest. And there’s some money left over for special effects.
Keep an eye out for the full-length version and report back if you ever get to see it!
Longtime readers of the blog will know that we’ve been waiting literally for years for my kids to start learning Shakespeare in school. Middle school was a big bust, with one teacher in the eighth grade who dragged his feet during Romeo and Juliet to the point where my oldest never even finished it, and when her younger sister later had the same teacher, he didn’t even try, he just showed the movie.
My oldest is in high school now and taking a class called Monsters in British Literature, where they’ll be reading The Tempest. My favorite. The one I used to tell them as a bedtime story. Plus, bonus? The same teacher does the second semester Shakespeare in Modern Film class, also known as the one where I get Bardfilm to do my kid’s homework.
Well tonight was open house where we got to meet the teachers. Look what greeted me in Monsters and British Lit?
Oh, yeah. We’re gonna have a good time with this class.
The class will cover Beowulf and Frankenstein as well as Caliban. The teacher made it a point to mention that she’d recently seen The Tempest at the Globe, and how she just loves being “the Shakespeare teacher.”
I introduced myself briefly – “My daughter’s been raised on Shakespeare. I read The Tempest to them as a bed time story. I think we’re gonna love this class.” I knew I could have talked her ear off. I had pictures of my kids in the Folger vault loaded up and ready to go on my phone. I showed great discipline, I want everybody to know!
I hope to have very many exciting stories in the upcoming year. It’s been a long time coming! A fine fine day indeed.
Who’s excited for the return of Shakespeare Uncovered?
