Thank goodness I held back some of the big hitters for towards the end of this Bardy Marathon. I just love this play. It somehow puts me in mind of the current Fantasy Epic on the small screen - 'Game of Thrones'. The play is also the background to one of my favourite Shakespeare related movies - 'The Dresser'. There are so many films linked to, inspired by or simply adpted from the works of Shakespeare that I'm considering a partner blog on just that subject.
May I also recommend to theatre lovers that they check out 'Lear' by Edward Bond as an alternative version. I have that play to thank for getting me into drama school. On the trawl of auditions for schools I had for a while used Edmund's "Thou Nature art my Goddess" speech but moved on to Feste from 'Twelfth Night'. However, having at last secured my place at a school I then had to audition again for a local government grant! For that we needed three pieces so I performed Feste, a piece from 'The Conquest of the South Pole' and finally a piece from Bond's 'Lear' as Lear himself. Couldn't tell you how they exactly went down but I won the grant so it can't have been all bad.
And Finally - Nearly half of the named cast in the production die (and another says he’s off to top himself at the end) but only three deaths occur on stage. Some might cite the similarity to Greek Tragedy but I think Billy-boy was simply fed up of ham-actors taking so long to finish a death scene! (Oh! Don’t they go on?)…
