As You Like It

I went down to The Globe this afternoon to see As you like it. As ever, it was very well done. AYLI is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, probably because I first studied it in school. A number of words I first encountered in that context I believe. The seven ages of man and the varying speeds of time speeches are rightly famous and it was good to have them in context again plus "laid on with a trowel", "sweet are the uses of adversity", "forever and a day", etc. The tap dancing was okay for a play that is part way a musical (al that side being done very well) but I don't see the point of introducing modern items (an OS map, sunglasses, a thermos flask, a bicycle, etc) when such efforts have been made to get back to Shakespeare's own times. The parts are shared out fairly equally and no-one shone. Perhaps they could have got more humour out of it. I fear some material was cut.

As You Like It

I got myself down to The Globe again last Tuesday to see a performance of As You Like It. I know the play well as I did it for A level, I recall. This was a bit different to other productions I have seen at The Globe in that it was a cut price production with only eight players. This involved doubling up the parts. At one point near the end a dummy stand in was necessary but they got a laugh out of it. Turning Touchstone into a woman didn't really work for me and there were other things that I missed from the bigger productions. Sometimes I thought the voices of some of the generally younger cast were a little weak and the whole thing got off to a rather chaotic and shaky start. Why they were all dressed in 19th century dress I do not know. Neither that nor the use of a camera really added to things. On the whole it was pretty good I guess but I have come to expect a very high standard I see. The music was done well by the cast themselves.

Shakespearean Pub Landlord

Happened to see this Friday. Al Murray is a genius and streets ahead of BBC's alternative Jonathan Ross (although neither programme can be recommended because of the content). To see the genius with this clip you really have to wait until 2:11 where out of nowhere Murray launches into the seven ages of man speech from Shakespeare's As You Like It. It's another example of the low and high brow that I find so amusing.