Shakespeare on DVD
SHAKESPEARE PLAYS ON DVD
Convener Linda Macpherson - 1st Thursday of the Month at 1pm
Dust Off your Shakespeare
You don't know your iambs from your couplets?
You can't tell Montagues from Capulets?
If you thought thee and thou, or troth and trow
Were just so hard - you never learned to love the Bard,
And now you're wondering what you missed
Of Romeo and Juliet's tryst:
Did she lead him on with sexy hints?
And who's this racy Pericles
Who's always leaving Tyre prints?
A merry band of brothers we,
That sit in friendly company
Enjoying cake and drinking tea.
Watch history and comedy,
Fantasy and tragedy;
All entertainments by the Bard
We're learning gently, not too hard.
And during post-performance chat
Stroke our harmless, necessary cat.
Linda © 2015
Our July meeting is on Thursday 7th at 1pm. The play is Coriolanus and stars Ralph Fiennes in a tremendous portrayal of a general in a fledgling Rome. still battling neighbouring barbarian tribes. The title is his honourable reward for defeating the Corioles, but now he has to take on the Volsces in a classic tale of war and revenge, set against a modern backdrop and filmed on location in Serbia, with the actual Serb army as extras. The production was directed by Fiennes in 2012 and features Vanessa Redgrave and Jessica Chastain.
In August, our meeting is Thursday 4th. The play is Pericles, prince of Tyre. Officially classified as a comedy, this baffles a modern audience, as there are only a few laughs, but it really only means a happy ending. My instinct is to label it as a dramatic epic, a bit like a meandering novel, where our hero goes on a personal journey in order to find himself after encountering more than enough setbacks for one person to handle. Pericles' journey is literal - halfway round the known world, losing and finding his entire family in the process. Expect storms and shipwrecks, encounters with pirates, and some memorable characters along the way. The production is from the BBC. I've only ever seen this once live: a cast of 2 from Multi Story tackled it successfully a few years ago.