Monday 13 May 2013

Our Set


In this photo you can see our wave structure, the rusted bathtub (turned upside-down), the ships wheel and two suitcases that were later filled with sand, newspapers and various other rubbish.


In this photo you can see another angle of the wave and the exercises bike/generator that Caliban uses. 

The Tempest Rehearsals


Caliban with our Stephanos and Trinculos


Ferdinand, Miranda, Prospero and Ariels.


Trinculos.


Caliban, Prospero and Miranda.


Caliban on the exercises bike.


Ferdinand and Ariels.


Caiban, Stephanos and Trinculos.


Stephanos.


Caliban hidden under the bath, Prospero watching invisible.


Stephanos examining the bath.


Prospero and Miranda.


Trinculo hidden under the bath and Stephanos.


Prospero giving her blessings to Ferdinand and Miranda.


Ferdinand and Miranda, love and first sight.

Thursday 9 May 2013

Horrible Histories - William Shakespeare Song

Another Horrible Histories video, this time a song about all the famous phrases and quotes that Shakespeare invented/wrote in his plays.

I spent a long time watching this and trying to figure out which quotes were from which plays... I didn't know as many as I thought I did...


Horrible Histories - Shakespeare's Globe

A brief animated video explaining the story of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Again, from Horrible Histories, but can you really blame me?

Horrible Histories - The Catholic Report with Bob Hale

A news-story style sketch from the CBBC show Horrible Histories, explaining the religions of the Monarchy from King Henry VIII through to William and Mary.

Not strictly about Shakespeare, but explains part of the world that Shakespeare was born into. And either way, I love Horrible Histories and got most of my historical knowledge from the show.


Wednesday 8 May 2013

Shakespeare: Staging the World


A rather dramatic but beautiful video advertising the Shakespeare exhibit that was a the British Museum at the end of last year.

The Tempest: Shakespeare's Sources


William Strachey's ‘A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight’, an eyewitness report of the real-life shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 on the island of Bermuda while sailing towards Virginia, is considered by most critics to be one of Shakespeare's primary sources because of certain verbal, plot and thematic similarities. It has been identified as Shakespeare's "main authority" for The Tempest, and critics say Shakespeare "surely drew" on the account for specific passages in the play.

There has, however, been some scepticism about the alleged influence of the play. Kenneth Muir argued that although "there is little doubt that Shakespeare had read ... William Strachey's True Reportory" and other accounts, "the extent of the verbal echoes of the Bermuda pamphlets has, I think, been exaggerated. There is hardly a shipwreck in history or fiction which does not mention splitting, in which the ship is not lightened of its cargo, in which the passengers do not give themselves up for lost, in which north winds are not sharp, and in which no one gets to shore by clinging to wreckage," and goes on to say that "Strachey's account of the shipwreck is blended with memories of Saint Paul's, in which too not a hair."


Gonzalo's description of his ideal society thematically and verbally echoes Montaigne's essay ‘Of the Canibales’, Caliban being a play on the word cannibal. Montaigne praises the society of the Caribbean natives: ‘It is a nation ... that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dividences, no occupation but idle; no respect of kinred, but common, no apparrell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousnes, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them.’