Monthly Archives: December 2015

All our yesterdays on film with the BFI

The Christmas pudding’s hardly cold and all those retrospectives on the year just gone are coming at us full tilt. And predictions for next year are following only just behind. As the quatercentenary of his death 2016 is going to … Continue reading

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It’s (almost) Christmas!

With Christmas approaching fast now, I’d like to wish all readers of The Shakespeare blog a very happy festive season. I hope it will be everything you could wish for, and more. To maintain the usual Shakespeare theme, here are some … Continue reading

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Deciphering handwriting in Shakespeare’s world

We only have a few examples of Shakespeare’s handwriting, but those that we have suggest that he wasn’t a particularly neat writer. I always like that section in Hamlet where the Prince explains how he had to remember his lessons … Continue reading

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The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery reincarnated online

The clever people at the University of Texas at Austin have got in ahead of the mass of Shakespeare-related projects to be released in 2016 by launching an online resource that’s designed to appeal to the more serious Shakespeare fan. And the … Continue reading

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Following the Shakespeare Trail

The weather now, in mid-December, is as dreary as Shakespeare describes at the end of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Ways are truly foul and there is little incentive to get anywhere on foot, even though that’s always my favourite method of exploring … Continue reading

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A heart that even cracks for woe

This week has been full of heartbreaking stories, including the coverage of repeated bouts of flooding in Cumbria, one of my favourite places. I can’t imagine what it must be like to find treasured possessions ruined and one’s home uninhabitable … Continue reading

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The Great Annual Sheep Drive: a reminder of Shakespeare’s London

I wrote a few weeks ago about my visit to London’s Guildhall to attend the ceremony by which my niece was made a Freeman of the City of London. The best-known privilege to which Freemen are entitled is that of … Continue reading

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Winter stories at Charlecote

December isn’t the coldest month of the year, but it’s the darkest, with days getting progressively shorter most of the month. Earlier this week I visited Charlecote Park, the stately home near Stratford-upon-Avon, and couldn’t help thinking how much the lack … Continue reading

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Full of sound and fury: recording Shakespeare

There are few things that take people back to their past more effectively than sound recordings. Mostly, of course, it’s recordings of favourite songs. Last week Radio 4 broadcast a series of programmes entitled His Master’s Voice which looked at … Continue reading

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