The very best of William Shakespeare

CTID1977 said:
powerful

'Friends, Romans, countrymen'​

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I'm not sure it can ever work properly without the countrymen to have their minds turned. One of the beauties of Shakespeare is its adaptability (to other cultures - there's a Globe theatre in Tokyo - and other settings like the film version of Macbeth set as drug warfare in Sheffield). Try this, beginning with Brutus.

 
fathellensbellend said:
Shakespeare didn’t write a thing, his daughter was illiterate, it was all the work of Christopher Marlowe
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Many women at that time (and later) were illiterate. I don't think you can base much on that evidence. Female education was rarely a priority unless you were royal, noble or Sir Thomas More.

As an aside, the richest member of my family, when I was a kid, was my Great Uncle Joe. He was illiterate too. And his parents were not nobility, He might have inherited maybe £100 from his Mum. Ended with a massive house in Brooklands and more brass than he could count.
 
BrianW said:
Many women at that time (and later) were illiterate. I don't think you can base much on that evidence. Female education was rarely a priority unless you were royal, noble or Sir Thomas More.

As an aside, the richest member of my family, when I was a kid, was my Great Uncle Joe. He was illiterate too. And his parents were not nobility, He might have inherited maybe £100 from his Mum. Ended with a massive house in Brooklands and more brass than he could count.
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Was it those mint balls he invented?
 
BrianW said:
Many women at that time (and later) were illiterate. I don't think you can base much on that evidence. Female education was rarely a priority unless you were royal, noble or Sir Thomas More.

As an aside, the richest member of my family, when I was a kid, was my Great Uncle Joe. He was illiterate too. And his parents were not nobility, He might have inherited maybe £100 from his Mum. Ended with a massive house in Brooklands and more brass than he could count.
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en.wikipedia.org

Marlovian theory of Shakespeare authorship - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
I'm getting the feeling toward the back end the speech, of a wee sniff of disenchantment. If John o gaunt was alive to day he would certainly weep tears for the state of dear England Right Now.

Patrick Stewart does the best john o gaunt speech .. stirring beyond belief!

 
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This, for my money, is the best cinema adaptation of a Shakespeare play:



I actually find watching Shakespeare difficult because of the richness and depth of the language. It’s almost like you have to translate him as you go along.

And am still not sure what iambic pentameter is.

But I was absolutely blown away by this version of King Lear.
 
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Bill Walker said:
The school I went to in Stalybridge, it was as if Shakespeare never existed.
Is that a failing of the school, to completely ignore Britains greatest writer ?

Or a presumption along the lines of "fuck it, this is a low socio economic area, these thicko kids are gonna be tradesmen at best, why do they need to know about this shit"
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A few things about Stalybridge.
You can't enter the town without going under or over a bridge.
It has (had?) the pubs with both the longest and the shortest names.
The second most sung song, 'It's a long way to Tipperary' was written by Jack Judge in Stalybridge.
Ada Summers, the first female J.P. was from Stalybridge.
So I would say that the school was deficient in its' teachings.

P.S. The most sung song is Happy Birthday to you.
 
Grassland Blue said:
A few things about Stalybridge.
You can't enter the town without going under or over a bridge.
It has (had?) the pubs with both the longest and the shortest names.
The second most sung song, 'It's a long way to Tipperary' was written by Jack Judge in Stalybridge.
Ada Summers, the first female J.P. was from Stalybridge.
So I would say that the school was deficient in its' teachings.

P.S. The most sung song is Happy Birthday to you.
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I just spent 10 minutes thinking about all the ways into Stalybridge and I have thought of a way that doesn't involve a bridge. Via Darnton Rd from Ashton. :)
 
Grassland Blue said:
G

Got to go under the railway bridge.
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Proceed from Tamesdide Hospital to Stalybridge end of Darnton Rd, turn right at Ridge Hill Lane, go to end - T junction with Stamford St. Turn Left. carry on till right turn at lights (left goes to Mossley) go down hill to where the Town Hall used to be and turn right (before the bridge over the river), arrive a the war memorial in town center , no bridges crossed or gone under.
Yes I'm bored.

Screenshot (5).png
 
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Two Gun Bob said:
I'm getting the feeling toward the back end, of a wee sniff of disenchantment. If John o gaunt was alive to day he would certainly weep tears for the state of dear England now.

Patrick Stewart does the best john o gaunt speech .. stirring beyond belief!

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Go on youtube and search for "Gielgud as John of Gaunt, from Richard II, This blessed plot .." Sorry I can't post the link.
Great actor, Patrick Stewart, but I like John Gielgud's version better.

For a long time I mistook the first half of Gaunt's speech ("This scepter'd isle, This other Eden, demi-paradise ... This England") for a simple paean of praise to my native land. But as it goes on you get the other stuff, darker, critical and more pessimistic: "This dear dear land is now leased out. England .. is now bound with shame (and) hath made a shameful conquest of itself."

I'm not enough of a Shakespeare scholar to know whether he was merely having John of Gaunt state an opinion of what Gaunt's 14th century England had once been and then become, or whether he (Shakespeare) was also lamenting changes that had taken place in the England of his own time - probably the latter. Either way, yes the speech can stand today as a sad reflection on the world we have lost in our own lifetimes.

Maybe WS would have understood that song from the Likely Lads, "Oh, what happened to you, whatever happened to me? What became of the people (People?) we used to be?"


(BTW, predicting Sheff.Utd 0 City 4.)
 
Finally got round to watching The Hollow Crown and thought Simon Russell Beale’s Falstaff was just magnificent, one of the best things I’ve ever seen on telly.

I also finally remembered what I studied at school for O level, it was Henry IV Pt 2 and Henry VI Pt 1. I never could get my head around why we started studying halfway through the Henry IV story and then missed out Henry V altogether. That said, I think they were the best two stories of the series.

Like others have said, I normally find following the text for WS extremely testing, but found the more I watched (with subtitles) the easier it got. He don’t half ramble on at times though. The worst bit was in Henry V, I think, when Katherine was learning English words, my god that was a dull scene.

Going to try and watch some more Shakespeare.
 
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