October 4, 2010, by Peter Kirwan
Where’s Shakespeare?
Regular readers might have been wondering what’s happened to the Bard in Bardathon over the last couple of months. Partly, it’s that there’s been a glut of non-Shakespeare early modern drama produced recently – plays by Middleton, Kyd, Chettle, Marlowe, Ford – all of which come around far less rarely than Shakespeare, so I’ve been prioritising these.
What’s been going on with Shakespeare? Well, I’ve had to sacrifice a range of productions for time and cost, which partly accounts for the slowness. I’m particularly disappointed that I wasn’t able to arrange time to see the Globe’s Henry IV plays, and I attempted to swap a ticket for the touring Comedy of Errors, only to find that the performance I wanted to attend intsead had been cancelled. I also won’t make it back up to Liverpool for Antony and Cleopatra – I’ve only just been, and can’t justify a second trip so soon. The Sheffield Hamlet was a little too far, and the RSC have revived productions which I’ve already seen, and therefore can’t justify the expense of re-attending.
It’s not all missed opportunities though. I’m seeing the National’s Hamlet and Prince of Denmark later in the month, and I’m extremely excited about Propeller’s Richard III at Coventry Belgrade and Song of the Goat Theatre’s Macbeth. I’m going to cheat and catch the Donmar Lear on the NT Live big screen, and I’ve already started making plans for the Little Angel Tempest. I have a feeling, however, that I’m not going to catch Peter Brook’s version of the Sonnets at the RSC – very much not my cuppa.
I also should catch The Man From Stratford at some point, seeing as my PhD supervisor wrote it…..
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