Shakespeare Magazine

30/06/2022

‪This regenerative farming project in Monmouthshire brings to mind the line from Henry V:‬

‪"The Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps..."‬

‪https://ourfood1200.wales/‬

We’re looking for farmers and landowners in Monmouthshire and the Brecon Beacons who have small plots of land suitable for growing fruit & veg for sale locally.

31/01/2022

‪Michael Lewis describes the 1987 London hurricane with a reference to The Tempest in his book Liar's Poker.‬

‪(NB Although Caliban does plenty of howling in the play, it's actually Ariel who, at Prospero's command, unleashes and directs the storm)‬

21/01/2022

Portrait of Saint Edmund Campion by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs (Twitter: ).

He was hung, drawn and quartered in 1581 when Shakespeare was 17 years old.

11/01/2022

"And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.
A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful..."

(Shakespeare – The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

Portrait: Paolo Roversi

30/12/2021

James Mason with Judy Garland in A Star is Born (1954).

In the opening scene, his character drunkenly bellows "My kingdom for a horse!"

It's a humorous moment, but it's also a subtle way of letting us know that he's a king who's nearing an ignominious end.

12/11/2021

Nice bit of Macbeth-related banter.

17/08/2021

Shakespearean examples in The Savage God: A Study of Su***de by Al Alvarez (1971).

16/08/2021

London being London, I happened to see a certain Master Tom Hiddleston on the street yesterday.

Alas, I didn't get a chance to shake his hand, thank him for his services to Shakespeare, and offer to buy him a pint.

Archive article: https://issuu.com/shakespearemagazine/docs/shakespeare_magazine_09

16/08/2021

The Whittington Stone, Highgate Hill.

Immortalised (along with his cat) in English folklore, the real-life Dick Whittington was Lord Mayor of London under three kings well known to Shakespeare fans – Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V.

16/08/2021

On a rare visit to North London, couldn't help noticing the Togo Embassy is bordered by four roads named after Shakespeare characters – Lysander, Miranda, Parolles, Prospero.

12/05/2021

Someone just told me that my "Shakespearean Character Name" is my credit card number followed by my PIN number.

Hmm. Seems legit.

06/05/2021

"Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,‬
‪Take him and cut him out in little stars,‬
‪And he will make the face of heaven so fine‬
‪That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun."‬
‪(Romeo and Juliet)‬

‪Nick Kamen, 1962 – 2021‬

30/04/2021

‪"O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!‬
‪She was a v***n when she went to school;‬
‪And though she be but little, she is fierce."‬

30/04/2021

Henry V – Act III, Scene 1

Some actors bluster
And some actors screech
But 'Once More Unto the Breach'
Is a Helluva speech

Some underplay it
And some over-reach
But 'Once More unto the Breach'
Is a Helluva speech

If you shake William's orchard
In search of a peach
'Once More Unto the Breach'
Is a Helluva speech

There are many contenders
And I don't like to preach
But 'Once More Unto the Breach'
Is a Helluva speech

While you're climbing a mountain
Or combing the beach
'Once More Unto the Breach'
Is a Helluva speech

You can read the great thinkers
From Homer to Nietzsche
But 'Once More Unto the Breach'
Is a Helluva speech.

23/04/2021

‪For Shakespeare's Birthday‬

‪1. Select any Shakespeare volume from your shelf.‬

‪2. Open at random page.‬

‪3. Read everything on the page, footnotes and all – preferably out loud.‬

‪4. Say "Happy Birthday, Master Shakespeare!" three times.‬

‪5. Make a wish.‬

21/04/2021

"King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello in talks to form breakaway Tragedy Super League..."

17/04/2021

Helen McCrory, 1968 – 2021

Saddened to learn of the death of this talented and much-admired actress.

Her Shakespeare roles included Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (1995) and Rosalind in As You Like It (2005).

Pictured here in Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea (2016).

[Photograph Credit: Richard Hubert Smith]

16/04/2021

Name the Shakespeare Play.

(If in doubt, ask an aficionado of British – and Canadian – Aviation history)

11/04/2021

‪"The miserable have‬
‪No other medicine‬
‪But only hope:‬
‪I've hope to live,‬
‪And am prepared to die."‬

‪Shakespeare – Measure For Measure ‬

‪ ‬

09/04/2021

‪"Yet be sad, good brothers,‬
‪For, by my faith, it very well becomes you.‬
‪Sorrow so royally in you appears‬
‪That I will deeply put the fashion on,‬
‪And wear it in my heart."‬

‪(Henry IV Part 2)‬

‪His Royal Highness Prince Philip, ‬
‪The Duke of Edinburgh ‬
‪1921 – 2021‬

03/04/2021

‪I'm sorry to differ with you, sir. ‬

‪But you are The Porter. ‬

‪You've always been The Porter. ‬

‪I should know, sir. ‬

‪I've always been here.‬

22/03/2021

The restored and extended version of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America features a theatre performance of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.

(I think that's a young Elizabeth McGovern as Cleopatra?)

20/03/2021

‪When daffodils begin to peer,‬
‪With heigh! the doxy over the dale,‬
‪Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;‬
‪For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.‬
‪The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,‬
‪With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!‬
‪Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;‬
‪For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.‬

15/03/2021

‪Today is the Ides of March, if you're wondering why all the soothsayers and conspiracy theorists are looking smug.‬

07/03/2021

‪When you're the first to do something, you're an Originator.‬

‪When you're the second to do it, you're an Imitator.‬

‪When you're the third to do it, you're a Traditionalist.‬

‪And when you do all three all the time, you're Shakespeare.‬

07/03/2021

It's 1575.

William Shakespeare is a nine-year-old boy growing up in Tudor England.

Meanwhile, in Japan, THIS. https://youtu.be/bIs3ibPgosE

Episode38, Nobunaga the king of zipang.