ShakespeaRetold

Barefoot in the wilderness
in search of understanding

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The BBC has been doing an excellent series of Shakespeare – ShakespeaRetold. They’ve done three already (_Much Ado About Nothing_, Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream is tonight (8:30pm, BBC1). If you’ve not been watching, I’d encourage you to do so. I’m not really a Shakespeare sort of bloke, but they’re excellent.

The gimmick is that they’re not using any of Shakespeare’s actual words. Instead, the shows are modern tales, but using exactly the same plot as in the original. This makes for surprisingly compelling viewing. Macbeth, for example, was transplanted to a successful restaurant, with Macbeth competing to inherit the business. And it worked wonderfully – harrowing viewing, as we watched his descent into madness, driven by guilt for what he had done. (And casting binmen as the witches was genius :-) .) The Taming of the Shrew, by contrast, was full of life, fast-moving and fun, as a Tory MP and contender for the party leadership is “tamed” by her new lover.