36. The Tempest
A Duke and his toddler daughter narrowly escape death by fleeing Milan in a ship (yes, I know Milan’s not on the coast, but Shakespeare‘s geography was a bit wibbly, so bear with). It promptly gets wrecked on an unknown island but, lucky for them, the island is teeming with magic spirits who can do anything he asks.
But here’s the thing, what he NEVER asks them to do is build him a new boat.
Instead, he waits thirteen years, until all his enemies are in one ship nearby then sends a storm to wreck that too.
Despite this, he’s a good dad who loves his daughter and wants her to be happy. Yay, what a relief.
Now, I’m not saying he doesn’t sort things so that the nice man he wants her to marry just conveniently washes up on her shore, cos he definitely does.
But I get the impression that if she’d said ‘not a chance, mate’ he’d have coped without applying the usual (forcing her to marry/sending her to a nunnery/requesting permission to kill her).
A weird bit, tho, is that nobody mentions her mother in the whole of the play, apart from in one line. So I’ve no idea if she’s dead or alive, because no one seems to care.
Also, surprisingly, right at the point where Prospero could exact a proper Shakespearean revenge on his enemies, he chooses, instead, to relinquish his power in favour of forgiveness and generosity. And then he asks the magic spirits to fix up the boat (now, dude? Really? Like you’ve only just thought of it?).
There are a couple of super-famous lines: -
‘O brave new world, that has such people in’t!’ (From Miranda, who’s grown up on a desert island with only her dad, and has just seen a load of blokes for the first time. Steady, girl)
And ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’ (From the ever-philosophical Prospero)
But my favourite has got to be this, from the idiot Trinculo (after having been stuck in a bog): ‘I do smell all horse-piss, at which my nose is in great indignation.’ Well, it would be, mate, it would be.
6/10 because Forbidden Planet was based on it.
37. King Henry VIII
This is less of an historical play and more of a propaganda mission with exceedingly nice frocks.
It kicks off with a prologue that says don’t even think about enjoying this, cos you won’t. And ends with an epilogue that says I told you you wouldn’t like it. And, to be fair, they’re not entirely wrong.
It is believed to have been written as a collaboration with Shakespeare’s successor, John Fletcher. And it certainly comes across as having been assembled by two guys who really should have spoken to each other more.
It’s not that bad, but for a play about Henry he kinda gets the short straw. Not for him the heroic deeds or heart-stopping speeches of the older ‘Henrys’: he’s just painted as a randy idiot who’s easily led. Oh, ok, that bit’s accurate then.
But the women do well here: Katherine of Aragon is shown as noble, long-suffering, and wise, and Anne Bullen is actually described as a saint - which, you’ve got to admit, is stretching it a bit.
The best thing about it is knowing that on about its third performance they used cannons to pump up the spectacle, managed to set The Globe Theatre on fire, and burn it to the ground. That’s a proper critical review, that is.
1/10
The Poems
Venus and Adonis
Well this is pretty racy: a bit more Shakespearean soft porn, methinks.
Venus wants to shag Adonis, and for most of this poem she’s doing everything she can not to take no for an answer. She has pulled him off his horse, pinned him to the ground, and I kept thinking I was about to read the world’s most poetic rape.
But you’ve got to give her 10/10 for effort: I genuinely thought I’d read it wrong when she tells him that, if he really can’t face kissing her on the mouth, he can always go downstairs (the hussy!).
Much to her bafflement, Adonis just wants to get back on his horse and kill stuff. She points out that he’s missing quite an opportunity here - she is Venus, after all. But no, he’d rather be off hunting (I personally think he’s VERY Greek, if you get my drift, but the thought doesn’t seem to cross her mind).
Weirdly, even his horse would rather be shagging, having seen a mare in the distance that really does it for him.
Eventually, and probably from all that blood leaving her brain to go elsewhere, Venus faints as if dead. Worried, Adonis finally tries to kiss her back to life - but not before he’s slapped her face a fair bit first. What a guy.
She recovers, pleads more, and he gives her a stern lecture on the difference between love and lust (like she cares, lol!).
Then she has a vision that he’ll be killed by a boar if he goes hunting. So he ignores her, goes off hunting and promptly gets killed by a boar.
Then he turns into a flower (confirming all my suspicions about him). Which is how we got the Anemone, and led to Venus deciding that all love would now have pain in it. Yeah, cheers for that, Goddess of sluts.
5/10
Lucrece
Oh sweet baby Jesus, this was worse than I expected - not because of the language (which is glorious) - but because of the content.
The rape of Lucretia may be famous (the event was said to cause the fall of the Roman Royal family, and turn Rome into a republic), but it’s vile to read about.
And the fact that Shakespeare’s eloquence imbues it with such incredible detail, and utterly intense descriptions of Lucrece’s ordeal, only makes it harder to undergo.
I mean, top marks, Will, for making it come alive so successfully and for being so clearly on her side, but zero marks for imagining that’s the experience we all wanted to share.
Did you really, for instance, have to write 39 stanzas - that’s 273 sodding lines! - of the bottom-feeding-bastard King Tarquin’s reasoning, as he justifies to himself the act he’s about to commit? (FYI 'she made me do it by being beautiful’ is up there, for fucks’ sake).
And what about the 56 horrible lines of him telling her (at knife-point) that, unless she lets him rape her, he’ll kill both her and some nameless groom, who he’ll then stick in her bed? He’ll claim he found them together and, of course, had to slay them for dishonouring his friend (yep, this is his good friend’s wife). From which act her whole family will be permanently disgraced.
And not forgetting the further 70 lines of her pleading with him. 70 lines! Especially as we know, from the beginning, that it’s not going to do her any good.
After all of that lot I felt extremely angry and rather unclean.
So the poem finishes with her suicide, and the revenge is that Tarquin and his family are banished. That’s all, folks!
I found myself yelling at the book, ‘Why, when you’re perfectly willing to castrate small boys just because they have pretty voices, can’t you do the same to this morally bankrupt, predatory reptile?’
And then I had to immediately watch Bake-off to try and disinfect my brain.
1/10 for it being creepily voyeuristic.
A Lover’s Complaint
I was hoping this was going to be a complaint along the lines of, ‘I’ve got a nasty case of the withering scags and so must to my bed’. But no.
Is basically an Elizabethan County-and-Western song, of the ‘He done me wrong’ variety.
He’s a pretty boy who puts it about a lot, cos really not short on offers (including a nun who breaks her bows for him).
She’s the nice girl who’s telling him to sling his hook.
Half the poem is the speech he deploys to make her finally give in, and was probably a useful ‘How to’ guide for all the young men of the time.
Cue the usual: abandonment, tears, a riverside location where she’s chucking away everything he gave her (personally, I’d have sold it - lots of jewellery), and a friendly ear to tell her Dolly Parton-style troubles to.
And then, proving that she truly belongs on a daytime TV talk show, she says she’d do it again if he asked. Sigh. There's no helping some people.
2/10
The Passionate Pilgrim
This collection of poems is a bit of a con, as the clever money thinks that most of these were not by Shakespeare at all.
My favourite is a slightly altered version of one that’s well known to be by Christopher Marlowe anyway (that one that goes, ‘Come, live with me, and be my love’, in case you’re wondering).
They were once attributed to our Will, so my Complete Works is doing the decent thing and putting them up there, just in case. But, frankly, they needn’t have bothered because they’re all a bit meh, to be honest.
3/10
The Phoenix and Turtle
What can I say about this? Um. Don’t bother. Yeah, that’s what I’d say about this.
1/10
A Duke and his toddler daughter narrowly escape death by fleeing Milan in a ship (yes, I know Milan’s not on the coast, but Shakespeare‘s geography was a bit wibbly, so bear with). It promptly gets wrecked on an unknown island but, lucky for them, the island is teeming with magic spirits who can do anything he asks.
But here’s the thing, what he NEVER asks them to do is build him a new boat.
Instead, he waits thirteen years, until all his enemies are in one ship nearby then sends a storm to wreck that too.
Despite this, he’s a good dad who loves his daughter and wants her to be happy. Yay, what a relief.
Now, I’m not saying he doesn’t sort things so that the nice man he wants her to marry just conveniently washes up on her shore, cos he definitely does.
But I get the impression that if she’d said ‘not a chance, mate’ he’d have coped without applying the usual (forcing her to marry/sending her to a nunnery/requesting permission to kill her).
A weird bit, tho, is that nobody mentions her mother in the whole of the play, apart from in one line. So I’ve no idea if she’s dead or alive, because no one seems to care.
Also, surprisingly, right at the point where Prospero could exact a proper Shakespearean revenge on his enemies, he chooses, instead, to relinquish his power in favour of forgiveness and generosity. And then he asks the magic spirits to fix up the boat (now, dude? Really? Like you’ve only just thought of it?).
There are a couple of super-famous lines: -
‘O brave new world, that has such people in’t!’ (From Miranda, who’s grown up on a desert island with only her dad, and has just seen a load of blokes for the first time. Steady, girl)
And ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’ (From the ever-philosophical Prospero)
But my favourite has got to be this, from the idiot Trinculo (after having been stuck in a bog): ‘I do smell all horse-piss, at which my nose is in great indignation.’ Well, it would be, mate, it would be.
6/10 because Forbidden Planet was based on it.
37. King Henry VIII
This is less of an historical play and more of a propaganda mission with exceedingly nice frocks.
It kicks off with a prologue that says don’t even think about enjoying this, cos you won’t. And ends with an epilogue that says I told you you wouldn’t like it. And, to be fair, they’re not entirely wrong.
It is believed to have been written as a collaboration with Shakespeare’s successor, John Fletcher. And it certainly comes across as having been assembled by two guys who really should have spoken to each other more.
It’s not that bad, but for a play about Henry he kinda gets the short straw. Not for him the heroic deeds or heart-stopping speeches of the older ‘Henrys’: he’s just painted as a randy idiot who’s easily led. Oh, ok, that bit’s accurate then.
But the women do well here: Katherine of Aragon is shown as noble, long-suffering, and wise, and Anne Bullen is actually described as a saint - which, you’ve got to admit, is stretching it a bit.
The best thing about it is knowing that on about its third performance they used cannons to pump up the spectacle, managed to set The Globe Theatre on fire, and burn it to the ground. That’s a proper critical review, that is.
1/10
The Poems
Venus and Adonis
Well this is pretty racy: a bit more Shakespearean soft porn, methinks.
Venus wants to shag Adonis, and for most of this poem she’s doing everything she can not to take no for an answer. She has pulled him off his horse, pinned him to the ground, and I kept thinking I was about to read the world’s most poetic rape.
But you’ve got to give her 10/10 for effort: I genuinely thought I’d read it wrong when she tells him that, if he really can’t face kissing her on the mouth, he can always go downstairs (the hussy!).
Much to her bafflement, Adonis just wants to get back on his horse and kill stuff. She points out that he’s missing quite an opportunity here - she is Venus, after all. But no, he’d rather be off hunting (I personally think he’s VERY Greek, if you get my drift, but the thought doesn’t seem to cross her mind).
Weirdly, even his horse would rather be shagging, having seen a mare in the distance that really does it for him.
Eventually, and probably from all that blood leaving her brain to go elsewhere, Venus faints as if dead. Worried, Adonis finally tries to kiss her back to life - but not before he’s slapped her face a fair bit first. What a guy.
She recovers, pleads more, and he gives her a stern lecture on the difference between love and lust (like she cares, lol!).
Then she has a vision that he’ll be killed by a boar if he goes hunting. So he ignores her, goes off hunting and promptly gets killed by a boar.
Then he turns into a flower (confirming all my suspicions about him). Which is how we got the Anemone, and led to Venus deciding that all love would now have pain in it. Yeah, cheers for that, Goddess of sluts.
5/10
Lucrece
Oh sweet baby Jesus, this was worse than I expected - not because of the language (which is glorious) - but because of the content.
The rape of Lucretia may be famous (the event was said to cause the fall of the Roman Royal family, and turn Rome into a republic), but it’s vile to read about.
And the fact that Shakespeare’s eloquence imbues it with such incredible detail, and utterly intense descriptions of Lucrece’s ordeal, only makes it harder to undergo.
I mean, top marks, Will, for making it come alive so successfully and for being so clearly on her side, but zero marks for imagining that’s the experience we all wanted to share.
Did you really, for instance, have to write 39 stanzas - that’s 273 sodding lines! - of the bottom-feeding-bastard King Tarquin’s reasoning, as he justifies to himself the act he’s about to commit? (FYI 'she made me do it by being beautiful’ is up there, for fucks’ sake).
And what about the 56 horrible lines of him telling her (at knife-point) that, unless she lets him rape her, he’ll kill both her and some nameless groom, who he’ll then stick in her bed? He’ll claim he found them together and, of course, had to slay them for dishonouring his friend (yep, this is his good friend’s wife). From which act her whole family will be permanently disgraced.
And not forgetting the further 70 lines of her pleading with him. 70 lines! Especially as we know, from the beginning, that it’s not going to do her any good.
After all of that lot I felt extremely angry and rather unclean.
So the poem finishes with her suicide, and the revenge is that Tarquin and his family are banished. That’s all, folks!
I found myself yelling at the book, ‘Why, when you’re perfectly willing to castrate small boys just because they have pretty voices, can’t you do the same to this morally bankrupt, predatory reptile?’
And then I had to immediately watch Bake-off to try and disinfect my brain.
1/10 for it being creepily voyeuristic.
A Lover’s Complaint
I was hoping this was going to be a complaint along the lines of, ‘I’ve got a nasty case of the withering scags and so must to my bed’. But no.
Is basically an Elizabethan County-and-Western song, of the ‘He done me wrong’ variety.
He’s a pretty boy who puts it about a lot, cos really not short on offers (including a nun who breaks her bows for him).
She’s the nice girl who’s telling him to sling his hook.
Half the poem is the speech he deploys to make her finally give in, and was probably a useful ‘How to’ guide for all the young men of the time.
Cue the usual: abandonment, tears, a riverside location where she’s chucking away everything he gave her (personally, I’d have sold it - lots of jewellery), and a friendly ear to tell her Dolly Parton-style troubles to.
And then, proving that she truly belongs on a daytime TV talk show, she says she’d do it again if he asked. Sigh. There's no helping some people.
2/10
The Passionate Pilgrim
This collection of poems is a bit of a con, as the clever money thinks that most of these were not by Shakespeare at all.
My favourite is a slightly altered version of one that’s well known to be by Christopher Marlowe anyway (that one that goes, ‘Come, live with me, and be my love’, in case you’re wondering).
They were once attributed to our Will, so my Complete Works is doing the decent thing and putting them up there, just in case. But, frankly, they needn’t have bothered because they’re all a bit meh, to be honest.
3/10
The Phoenix and Turtle
What can I say about this? Um. Don’t bother. Yeah, that’s what I’d say about this.
1/10
