Monday, April 25, 2016

In Celebration of an Anniversary


Saturday, April 23, 2016, marked the 400th anniversary of the death of this armigerous fellow:


William Shakespeare's application for, and grant of, arms (nominally on behalf of his father, John, but of course he would naturally inherit them upon his father's death) caused a bit of controversy among some of the heralds in the College of Arms. Ralph Brooke, York Herald, thought Shakespeare unworthy of being granted arms, calling him "Shakespear ye Player" in his opposition to the grant by Garter King of Arms.


But really, the heraldry isn't the main thing about today's post. What today's post is about is to point you to a great six-and-a-half minute video of a series of actors (and one other individual) during a performance of Shakespeare Live! at the Royal Shakespeare Company discussing (well, okay, declaiming) how to properly deliver the first line of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, "To be or not to be, that is the question." The entire skit is entitled "A Line of Hamlets."

I'm not about to give the ending away, but you should certainly go out and see this one for yourself.

The link is: http://tennantnews.blogspot.com/2016/04/video-theres-no-skull-in-this-bit-david.html

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