Tag Archives: shakespeare

Yesterday morning I was glued to my laptop, watching the press conference announcing the results of the research into the skeleton found in a Leicester car park last year. To cut a long story short, they confirmed that yes, the body is that of Richard III, beyond a reasonable doubt. I was immensely moved by  Continue Reading »

A few weeks ago I heard that the Globe had transferred two of their summer productions to the Apollo Theatre for the winter – and more importantly from my perspective, these were two new all-male productions starring Mark Rylance, former artistic director of the Globe. I’d read about the similar productions he’d done almost a  Continue Reading »

Christmas is coming early for one of Mal Catlyn’s fans… One of the (many) cool things about Angry Robot Books is that they now publish an audiobook version of all their titles, simultaneously with the paperback and ebook. This is a great thing for both authors and readers, since there are a lot of fantasy  Continue Reading »

June is Audiobook Month, so I’m delighted to be able to contribute with my own slice of aural entertainment. You can now wrap your lugholes around the adventures of Mal, Coby and friends with the latest co-production between Angry Robot Books and Brilliance Audio. Read by Michael Page, award-winning narrator of Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke  Continue Reading »

I have a love-hate relationship with movies set in my favourite historical periods. On the one hand, I adore the visuals, but the scripts in particular can be horribly anachronistic or just plain annoying! Just for fun, I thought I’d pick apart a few films set in the Elizabethan period, starting with a well-known example: Shakespeare  Continue Reading »

I’ve just been watching a DVD of “Twelfth Night” (the BBC/Trevor Nunn version with Helena Bonham-Carter and Nigel Hawthorne), and it suddenly struck me that this play is the twin (no pun intended!) of “The Merchant of Venice”. We often think of “The Merchant of Venice” as a serious play, even a tragedy, because of  Continue Reading »

I was watching “Doctor Who Confidential” on BBC iPlayer this evening (nothing unusual about that!), when a bit of theatrical jargon caught my ear. During a section about lighting effects, the gaffer (head electrician) explained that he was following the script “from what’s called ‘sides’” – and I was suddenly taken back four hundred years.  Continue Reading »

Last night we went to see “The Merchant of Venice” at the Globe (a regular annual trip arranged by the campus sports and social club). The production was very good indeed – great acting and lots of music and spectacle. Unusually, they had added some bits of scenery to suggest the cityscape of Venice: at  Continue Reading »

Yesterday’s trip to London was exhausting but definitely worth it – almost as good as a trip back in time (and without the smells!) We got the coach down to London and arrived in plenty of time, so we had a drink in “The Mudlark” and then dinner at Pizza Express (very Elizabethan – not!).  Continue Reading »