A stick-figure Shakespeare comic by Mya Lixian Gosling
So, I was planning to do a witty piece commenting on the entertaining "Ira Glass thinks Shakespeare sucks" kerfuffle that has been raging across Shakespearean social media accounts, but then the electricity at my house went out. So you have this instead:
In case you're wondering what other Shakespearean quotes work well during power outages, I can also recommend shrieking "Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!" Just be forewarned - this tends to alarm people.
It's been a while since we've checked in on our favorite Shakespearean characters' social media feeds. Let's see what they've been up to...
Well, when we last left the Ladies, they had just fended off yet another attempt by John and Philip to strongarm them into declaring an allegiance...
OK, so somewhere along the way I totally abandoned the actual plot of King John, but never mind. This it how it should have ended. Everyone's much happier this way. Don't argue.
Thanks to Brigit Wilson, Carmen Grant, and Deidre Gillard-Rowlings for letting me co-opt their Elizabethan alter-egos for a week!
We follow up my post on Monday with a further look at the scandalous lives of the Ladies of Angiers (Brigit Wilson, Carmen Grant, and Deidre Gillard-Rowlings), liberated from the pages of King John.
On the left they are gambling with the Earl of Salisbury, while on the right Chatillon is serving them drinks at the poolside. Angiers is clearly the party town of the Loire Valley.
Anyways, here they are, back in King John again for some more negotiations.
I hasten to point out that, apart from the compulsive gambling habit, this comic is, in fact, totally true to the plot of King John, which could be uncharitably subtitled as "The Play Where Not One, But Two Kings Kind Of Act Like Idiots".
We round off the Ladies of Angiers on Friday. Stop by! There will be drinks*.
*There will not be actual drinks.
My position as official/self-appointed Shakespearean internet humorist has given me licence to do things like stalk various Shakespearean actors on social media, under the guise of keeping my finger on the pulse of the Shakespearean zeitgeist. I particularly enjoy the little glimpses they offer into the backstage life of a production. And then sometimes they post things like this:
These are three lovely company members of the Stratford Festival (Brigit Wilson, Carmen Grant, and Deidre Gillard-Rowlings), who, over the past month, have been making the most of their roles as citizens of Angiers in the current candle-lit Original Practices production of King John. Now, I have scoured the text of King John, and nowhere do I find reference to either powder pink mopeds or bowling, so I am forced to admit that the self-styled Ladies of Angiers, despite their sober Elizabethan garb, have strayed rather monumentally from the Original Practices doctrine. However, I think we can all agree that that is to the greater benefit of the world at large.
Follow @HOOPOOHEART for the latest Ladies of Angiers adventures. I, meanwhile, have taken the liberty of re-inserting them back into King John...
Join us again on Wednesday for more Ladies of Angiers action!
So, I'm counting down the days until I get to go to the Stratford Festival. One of the Shakespeare plays they are performing this season is King John, which is definitely one of the less-popular Shakespeare plays. I saw it once on stage before, at Stratford in 2004, and have watched the 1984 BBC Shakespeare TV adaptation, but have never sat down and studied it. I'm in the process of reading the play, but here's what I've picked up so far from my other bits of research:
I hope you read that carefully, because I've got a couple more King John comics lined up for next week!
After all the excitement of the Shakespeare World Cup, I thought I would sneak a non-Shakespeare comic in here, just for a change.
As some of you might know, when not occupied drawing Shakespeare cartoons or cataloging books for Southeast Asia I can often be found at my local rock climbing gym, getting into all sorts of literal scrapes. Recently my gym put up a new route that mimics chimneys, or rock fissures that are wide enough to fit your entire body in them. In order to climb them you have to sort of wedge yourself in the chimney and use your body tension to inch your way upwards. It kind of looks like this:
Not me. I found this photo on this blog, and the climber's expression perfectly sums up my opinion of chimney climbing, so I borrowed it.
It's not very common to see chimney routes in gyms, so I was very excited to see one in my gym. This is what happened when I tried to climb it.
The friction coefficient of my gym shorts has never seemed so important. (In case you're wondering, I did eventually make it up, thanks to my climbing partner's patience and advice.)
Check out my other rock climbing comics here. Normal Shakespearean service will resume on Friday!
The Shakespeare World Cup
The Teams | Groups A & B | Groups C & D | Groups E & F | Groups G & H | Group Stage Summary, pt. 1 | Group Stage Summary, pt. 2 | Round of 16 Summary | Quarter Finals Summary | Semi Finals Summary | Final Summary
The dust has settled. After one month of non-stop action, the Shakespeare World Cup has finally come to an end. Let's take a look at what happened:
So, out of the entire field of 32 Shakespearean characters, the one that came out on top was the ruthless, single-minded, efficient and emotionally-repressed trained solider. What a surprise.
Congratulations to Germany, to Coriolanus, and to all my readers for putting up with my World Cup antics! Check back again in four years for the next edition of the Shakespeare World Cup!
