Shakespeare And Me

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It is Shakespeare Day today, April 23rd, or at least that is what we should be celebrating in the UK especially as this year is the 400th anniversary of his death, which actually happened on his birthday. It is of course also Saint George’s Day. I hated Shakespeare at school, where we would just be handed sonnets, rather than the plays, to dissect and analyse as if cutting open a frog. The first play I saw was on TV – a production of Hamlet starring Derek Jacobi. I was enthralled and took in as many of the plays as I could, as reader and from the audience afterwards. The first I saw on stage was Twelfth Night, which I have now seen in about four quite contrasting interpretations. I’m fascinated to see that different productions can take the text in very different directions. I have seen the various movies and films adapted from the plays including Forbidden Planet based on The Tempest and of course, West Side Story which reimagines Romeo & Juliet. At university we staged scenes from Macbeth (I was Banquo) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I was Theseus). This was a tough scene to do, as we were purposely put through our paces as if preparing for a real full on professional staging, by a real theatre director. He wanted my character to be angry and got me to act angry by constantly demanding more fury from me – he knew I would feel like killing him by the time he was finished, and it worked – though I didn’t actually attack him, he got the results he wanted. At a science fiction convention, through the writings of David Wake, we took up a challenge set by author Jasper Fforde to present Richard 3rd in the style of The Rocky Horror Show. I got to be Richard’s father, Edward 4th, and later his ghost too. Jasper Fforde hosted the event himself which was great fun. I loved seeing The Taming Of The Shrew in a theatre of the round, an open air production of Twelfth Night, and a promenade version of As You Like it, where the audience move freely around the set among the actors and action. Two characters had a conversation leaning on each of my shoulders at one point, and one whispered to me to step back a bit as they were about to have a sword fight. I have referenced the Bard in my own work many times, and quaffed a few ales in Shakespeare bars, such as that photographed here, with his portrait though in truth no one knows what Shakespeare really looked like. So, happy birthday Will, your plays live on, and you have brought me much joy in my own life. Arthur Chappell