26. Measure for Measure
This is all about shagging. But don’t get excited, cos it’s not raunchy.
We have Claudio trying to marry the girl he loves, but somehow not quite succeeding in that, and oh look she’s pregnant, damn.
And we have Angelo, who promised to marry a girl, and then dumped her when her dowry dwindled, so we know he’s a bit of a shit.
But he’s also important, and decides to go on bit of a civic clean up, sentencing Claudio to death for immoral behaviour.
So Claudio’s sister goes to Angelo to plead for her brother’s life, and Big A promptly gets the hots for her.
The raging hypocrite says he’ll pardon her brother if she lets him do immoral behaviour with her.
But she’s a novice nun, so it’s never going to happen. Cue more of Shakespeare’s rather overused plot device of shagging in the dark with the wrong person.
Problem with this play, tho, is the whole execution thing - kinda kills the vibe of it as a comedy.
To be fair to him, Will tries to balance it out by including an old slapper who runs a brothel, and some characters called Elbow, Froth, and Pompey Bum, but I wouldn’t say he quite pulls it off (see what I did there, nudge, nudge, wink, wink?).
5/10
27. Othello
Have just finished reading this play and am sitting here in a state of ‘OMG, what just happened?’
Soooo many questions!
And all of them to you, Iago, for whom I simply don’t have enough epithets.
I know you were miffed that Cassius got the promotion you wanted, but to then KILL THEM ALL? I mean WTF dude? I can’t even.
And I just don’t get it why it was necessary. Because if you’re so smart and silver-tongued that you can twist anyone into believing what you want, then how come you’re not higher up the ladder anyway? Couldn’t you have easily talked your way into a better job? So why this one, why Othello?
And as you’re so clearly EVIL in big, red, flaming letters, then how come no-one’s ever noticed even the teensiest character flaw in you before?
You get called ‘honest Iago’ thirteen times. I know, I counted.
Was it one of those things where, once you got going, you became hooked on the power of it all? And then you just pushed it as far as it could go, even to the point of killing your own wife? I mean, was there a plan? How did you think this was going to end?
Am completely gob-smacked.
10/10
28. Macbeth
Everything seems to be bumbling along nicely, until three witches jump out at Macbeth and prophesy that he’ll be made Thane of Cawdor (no, not Mordor; although I always hear Gandalf rolling his r’s in my head when I read it), and then he’ll become King.
Almost immediately he finds out that, yes, without lifting a finger he’s literally just become Thane of Cawdor (say it with me, Corrrrrrrdorrrrrr).
Which rather begs the question of why he feels the need to race home and murder the King? And under his own roof, too, cos that’s not suspicious at all, nooooo.
Up to this point, there’s been no hint that Macca and his wife are about to turn into total psychopaths.
But they do, for a bit. And then she gets all guilt-ridden and weird, and he becomes, frankly, genocidal.
So one minute the minions are saying, ‘poor Macbeth, he was so cut up about King Duncan,’ and two pages later everyone just refers to him as ‘the tyrant’.
And I’m honestly wondering why he wanted the job in the first place, if he’s so crap at Kinging?
I do, however, love the discovery that all the witches had beards - WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD ME THIS BEFORE?
I can’t help thinking that Shakespeare might have been having problems with some particularly burly and intransigent cast-members, and was forced to write that bit in.
And the play has many fabulously memorable lines, from the old, ‘Double, double, toil and trouble,’ to ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’ and, of course, the one that’s not about a dog, ‘Out, damned spot! out, I say!’
I was very taken with, ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’ Because it feels so ...Yoda.
And there are some hidden gems, like this description of the world quickening into dusk: ‘Light thickens; and the crow makes wings to th’rooky wood: good things of day begin to droop and drowse; whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.’
5/10
29. King Lear
The definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is as follows: -
Someone with a grandiose sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and the belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment. It may also manifest as antagonism, fueled by grandiosity and attention-seeking, and being intolerant of disagreement or questioning.
Or, in simpler terms: - King Lear.
This monstrous numpty decides he’d like to have an easy life for a bit, and says he’ll divvy up his kingdom between his three daughters - providing they toady up to him enough, of course.
Daughters one and two grit their teeth and tell him of their absolute adoration, but number three won’t play the game. She tells him she loves him just as much as a daughter should.
Now this isn’t nearly enough flannel for Lear, who throws all his toys out of his pram, and banishes the poor girl without a penny to her name.
Luckily, the King of France can see what she’s worth, so she marries him, leaving Lear to be an almighty burden on her two sisters.
Now, imagine bored, bullying, and flattery-addicted Lear (and his retinue of attendants) fetching up at your house for a month. And when I say attendants, what I really mean is one hundred out-of-work hooligans, acting like they’ve on a week-long stag-do in Shagalouf. And then see if you’d be all sweetness and light.
So, when a few days later Lear is busy standing in a thunderstorm, ranting and raging (again) at the ingratitude of his daughters (for chucking him out on his ear), you know the truth might be a wee bit to the contrary.
He’s cut off his own nose to spite his face so forcefully that he won’t even shelter from the storm, because then he couldn’t demand as much sympathy for the ‘injustice of his plight’.
Finally, because of his complete resistance to all the nice people who try to save him from his own stupidity, pretty much everyone ends up dead.
And if you think I’m being a bit harsh, here’s just one of his fatherly speeches to a daughter who dares stand up to him: -
‘Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose, if thou dids’t intend to make this creature fruitful! Into her womb convey sterility! Dry up in her the organs of her increase; and from her derogate body never spring a babe to honour her! If she must teem, create her child of spleen; that it may live, and be a thwart disnatured torment to her! Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; with cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; turn all her mother’s pains and benefits to laughter and contempt, - that she may feel how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!’
But, bearing in mind that Lear raised them, let’s just say that a couple of those apples don’t fall very far from the tree.
On the up side, there is masses of plot, and lots of ‘alarums’ - a stage direction that usually indicates off-stage fisticuffs, and which I have grown to love.
Most ‘alarums’ are followed by someone stumbling in from stage left, bearing a minor scratch, and shrieking, ‘O fie, I am slain!’ Always a joy.
4/10 because he pissed me off so much.
30. Anthony and Cleopatra
I know Anthony gets top billing here, but I’m in camp Cleopatra all the way: she’s quite possibly the FIERCEST DIVA ever written. Imagine Cher, Madonna, Lady Gaga and Rhianna all rolled into one, then multiply by 100 and add a shitload of gold.
So unspeakably awesome is she that she rocks up to her first meeting with Anthony like this: -
‘The barge she sat in, like a burnisht throne, burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold; purple the sails, and so perfumed that the winds were love-sick with them...For her own person, it beggar’d all description.... and Anthony, enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too...’
That she is totally besotted with him is also strangely wonderful (because I’m not sure I would be).
I get that, once upon a time, he was a brilliant and ambitious soldier whose military dominance caused massive expansion of the Roman Empire, and stuck him up there in a third of the top job.
But those days are a bit behind him now, and he’s basically like an ageing rock star let loose in Marbella.
He’s also prone to making bad choices and crap decisions, which he has a tendency to blame on Cleopatra. The dick.
Still, the heart wants what the heart wants, and she won’t hear a word against him, even when he fucks off and marries someone else.
In Act four, Shakespeare suddenly employs a moment of pure post-modern staging, where he breaks from the realism of the rest of the play by having musicians playing underneath the stage as soldiers walk across it. Spooked, the soldiers conclude that this is a sign of the God Hercules (Anthony’s patron) deserting him, and presaging the tragedies to come. Is genius.
Of course, Cleopatra gets many great lines: -
On knowing her infatuation with the big A is a bit extra, but still having all her wits - ‘Though age from folly could not give me freedom, it does from childishness.’
On having been a bit of a slut with Caesar senior - ‘My salad days, when I was green in my judgement.’
On losing not one shred of her dignity upon being captured by Caesar junior - ‘Mine honour was not yielded, but conquer’d merely.’
And when she chooses her death - ‘Methinks I hear Anthony call; I see him rouse himself to praise my noble act... husband, I come: I am fire and air...’
A solid 8/10
This is all about shagging. But don’t get excited, cos it’s not raunchy.
We have Claudio trying to marry the girl he loves, but somehow not quite succeeding in that, and oh look she’s pregnant, damn.
And we have Angelo, who promised to marry a girl, and then dumped her when her dowry dwindled, so we know he’s a bit of a shit.
But he’s also important, and decides to go on bit of a civic clean up, sentencing Claudio to death for immoral behaviour.
So Claudio’s sister goes to Angelo to plead for her brother’s life, and Big A promptly gets the hots for her.
The raging hypocrite says he’ll pardon her brother if she lets him do immoral behaviour with her.
But she’s a novice nun, so it’s never going to happen. Cue more of Shakespeare’s rather overused plot device of shagging in the dark with the wrong person.
Problem with this play, tho, is the whole execution thing - kinda kills the vibe of it as a comedy.
To be fair to him, Will tries to balance it out by including an old slapper who runs a brothel, and some characters called Elbow, Froth, and Pompey Bum, but I wouldn’t say he quite pulls it off (see what I did there, nudge, nudge, wink, wink?).
5/10
27. Othello
Have just finished reading this play and am sitting here in a state of ‘OMG, what just happened?’
Soooo many questions!
And all of them to you, Iago, for whom I simply don’t have enough epithets.
I know you were miffed that Cassius got the promotion you wanted, but to then KILL THEM ALL? I mean WTF dude? I can’t even.
And I just don’t get it why it was necessary. Because if you’re so smart and silver-tongued that you can twist anyone into believing what you want, then how come you’re not higher up the ladder anyway? Couldn’t you have easily talked your way into a better job? So why this one, why Othello?
And as you’re so clearly EVIL in big, red, flaming letters, then how come no-one’s ever noticed even the teensiest character flaw in you before?
You get called ‘honest Iago’ thirteen times. I know, I counted.
Was it one of those things where, once you got going, you became hooked on the power of it all? And then you just pushed it as far as it could go, even to the point of killing your own wife? I mean, was there a plan? How did you think this was going to end?
Am completely gob-smacked.
10/10
28. Macbeth
Everything seems to be bumbling along nicely, until three witches jump out at Macbeth and prophesy that he’ll be made Thane of Cawdor (no, not Mordor; although I always hear Gandalf rolling his r’s in my head when I read it), and then he’ll become King.
Almost immediately he finds out that, yes, without lifting a finger he’s literally just become Thane of Cawdor (say it with me, Corrrrrrrdorrrrrr).
Which rather begs the question of why he feels the need to race home and murder the King? And under his own roof, too, cos that’s not suspicious at all, nooooo.
Up to this point, there’s been no hint that Macca and his wife are about to turn into total psychopaths.
But they do, for a bit. And then she gets all guilt-ridden and weird, and he becomes, frankly, genocidal.
So one minute the minions are saying, ‘poor Macbeth, he was so cut up about King Duncan,’ and two pages later everyone just refers to him as ‘the tyrant’.
And I’m honestly wondering why he wanted the job in the first place, if he’s so crap at Kinging?
I do, however, love the discovery that all the witches had beards - WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD ME THIS BEFORE?
I can’t help thinking that Shakespeare might have been having problems with some particularly burly and intransigent cast-members, and was forced to write that bit in.
And the play has many fabulously memorable lines, from the old, ‘Double, double, toil and trouble,’ to ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’ and, of course, the one that’s not about a dog, ‘Out, damned spot! out, I say!’
I was very taken with, ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’ Because it feels so ...Yoda.
And there are some hidden gems, like this description of the world quickening into dusk: ‘Light thickens; and the crow makes wings to th’rooky wood: good things of day begin to droop and drowse; whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.’
5/10
29. King Lear
The definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is as follows: -
Someone with a grandiose sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and the belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment. It may also manifest as antagonism, fueled by grandiosity and attention-seeking, and being intolerant of disagreement or questioning.
Or, in simpler terms: - King Lear.
This monstrous numpty decides he’d like to have an easy life for a bit, and says he’ll divvy up his kingdom between his three daughters - providing they toady up to him enough, of course.
Daughters one and two grit their teeth and tell him of their absolute adoration, but number three won’t play the game. She tells him she loves him just as much as a daughter should.
Now this isn’t nearly enough flannel for Lear, who throws all his toys out of his pram, and banishes the poor girl without a penny to her name.
Luckily, the King of France can see what she’s worth, so she marries him, leaving Lear to be an almighty burden on her two sisters.
Now, imagine bored, bullying, and flattery-addicted Lear (and his retinue of attendants) fetching up at your house for a month. And when I say attendants, what I really mean is one hundred out-of-work hooligans, acting like they’ve on a week-long stag-do in Shagalouf. And then see if you’d be all sweetness and light.
So, when a few days later Lear is busy standing in a thunderstorm, ranting and raging (again) at the ingratitude of his daughters (for chucking him out on his ear), you know the truth might be a wee bit to the contrary.
He’s cut off his own nose to spite his face so forcefully that he won’t even shelter from the storm, because then he couldn’t demand as much sympathy for the ‘injustice of his plight’.
Finally, because of his complete resistance to all the nice people who try to save him from his own stupidity, pretty much everyone ends up dead.
And if you think I’m being a bit harsh, here’s just one of his fatherly speeches to a daughter who dares stand up to him: -
‘Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose, if thou dids’t intend to make this creature fruitful! Into her womb convey sterility! Dry up in her the organs of her increase; and from her derogate body never spring a babe to honour her! If she must teem, create her child of spleen; that it may live, and be a thwart disnatured torment to her! Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; with cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; turn all her mother’s pains and benefits to laughter and contempt, - that she may feel how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!’
But, bearing in mind that Lear raised them, let’s just say that a couple of those apples don’t fall very far from the tree.
On the up side, there is masses of plot, and lots of ‘alarums’ - a stage direction that usually indicates off-stage fisticuffs, and which I have grown to love.
Most ‘alarums’ are followed by someone stumbling in from stage left, bearing a minor scratch, and shrieking, ‘O fie, I am slain!’ Always a joy.
4/10 because he pissed me off so much.
30. Anthony and Cleopatra
I know Anthony gets top billing here, but I’m in camp Cleopatra all the way: she’s quite possibly the FIERCEST DIVA ever written. Imagine Cher, Madonna, Lady Gaga and Rhianna all rolled into one, then multiply by 100 and add a shitload of gold.
So unspeakably awesome is she that she rocks up to her first meeting with Anthony like this: -
‘The barge she sat in, like a burnisht throne, burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold; purple the sails, and so perfumed that the winds were love-sick with them...For her own person, it beggar’d all description.... and Anthony, enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too...’
That she is totally besotted with him is also strangely wonderful (because I’m not sure I would be).
I get that, once upon a time, he was a brilliant and ambitious soldier whose military dominance caused massive expansion of the Roman Empire, and stuck him up there in a third of the top job.
But those days are a bit behind him now, and he’s basically like an ageing rock star let loose in Marbella.
He’s also prone to making bad choices and crap decisions, which he has a tendency to blame on Cleopatra. The dick.
Still, the heart wants what the heart wants, and she won’t hear a word against him, even when he fucks off and marries someone else.
In Act four, Shakespeare suddenly employs a moment of pure post-modern staging, where he breaks from the realism of the rest of the play by having musicians playing underneath the stage as soldiers walk across it. Spooked, the soldiers conclude that this is a sign of the God Hercules (Anthony’s patron) deserting him, and presaging the tragedies to come. Is genius.
Of course, Cleopatra gets many great lines: -
On knowing her infatuation with the big A is a bit extra, but still having all her wits - ‘Though age from folly could not give me freedom, it does from childishness.’
On having been a bit of a slut with Caesar senior - ‘My salad days, when I was green in my judgement.’
On losing not one shred of her dignity upon being captured by Caesar junior - ‘Mine honour was not yielded, but conquer’d merely.’
And when she chooses her death - ‘Methinks I hear Anthony call; I see him rouse himself to praise my noble act... husband, I come: I am fire and air...’
A solid 8/10
