RANDOM JOTTINGS

A blog about music, sports, theatre and rants

Long time blogger just moved to wordpress. Love music, theatre, movies, sport (tennis and cricket) and cooking. Two great daughters, two great granddaughters.

Classical Comics

It is nearly a year ago, as I have just discovered from a search on Random (gosh how time flies when you are having fun), that I mentioned I had received copies of previews of a new series of Classical Comics.  The ones sent to me were three versions of Henry V and I blogged about it here.

Karen sent me the full copies quite some time ago now and I have been shamefully remiss in not mentioning them before as I had promised to do, but the TBR pile just kept growing, like Topsy, and they Hv_2 ended up getting buried under the ever growing heap.  I am now talking about them because I spotted the versions of Henry V and Macbeth on the bookshelves at the Globe shop yesterday.  There had obviously been a full pile there but it had thinned considerably and only one copy of HV left and a few of Macbeth.  I was delighted to see them in such a prominent position and note that they were selling well.  I am sure there are Shakespeare lovers who will turn their noses up at these publications, but I am not one of them.

I am speaking as one who did not watch or listen to any Shakespeare for overMac_2  30 years as I found it all soooo boring and I lay this squarely at the feet of my teachers and the incredibly dull and unimaganitive way Will was taught at my school.  My feelings about my convent school and the standards of teaching there are well known to regular bloggers so I will not bore you again. 

I rediscovered Shakespeare just a few years ago and after watching the school parties at the Globe on Friday, I felt envious that I had not had the same experience as they. All those years wasted.  I mentioned in my earlier post that I hate using the word ‘accessible’ as I think this is an ideal that can lead to serious dumbing down (witness the new presentation of the First Night of the Proms which I dare not start on about otherwise this computer screen will implode), but in this case, if these books make Shakespeare more accessible than I am all for it.  They come in full text or plain text with the same wonderfully drwan illustrations throughout and I can highly recommend them.

On checking their website www.classicalcomics.com I note that coming up are Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol.

Great stuff.

Posted in

4 responses to “Classical Comics”

  1. Elaine Simpson-Long Avatar
    Elaine Simpson-Long

    I am still fairly high from the wonderful experience of the Globe. It was a simply terrific afternoon and that lovely sense of sharing all the fun and joy with everyone else in the theatre. Can’t wait to go again.

    Reply
  2. stu Avatar
    stu

    It’s Shakespeare, but with actors that actually do what they’re told.

    Reply
  3. daphne sayed Avatar
    daphne sayed

    you also get a wonderful mag. as a friend. I was one for along time until Mr Brown reduced me to near penury. I hope to see Timon of athens since I’ve never seen it done. I’m just debating whether I can manage as a groundling. I could always sit on the floor in the hopes that at the end someone would help me to arise.

    Reply
  4. Margaret Powling Avatar
    Margaret Powling

    I can’t say I loved old Will whilst I was at school; having to ‘do’ Twelfth Night for ‘O’ level was a bind, but once I started on my ‘A’ level course (which, incidentally, I didn’t finish as by the time I was almsot 18 I decided I’d had quite enough of school; I was, after all, grown up with a boy friend whom I intended marrying – and I did) we were taken to Stratford to see King Lear. The date was 7 November 1962 and it was the renowned Peter Brook production, with Paul Schofield as Lear and Diana Rigg as Cordelia. I even have the late Bernard Levin’s criticism of this (he was a theatre critic in those days.) He wasn’t as fulsome in his praise of the production as I was. The scenery was plain, almost barbaric … simple sheets of metal suspended above the stage. And one stunning effect was achieved when, in the scene where Gloucester’s eyes are put out, the house lights come up, so that we all blinked, having been sitting in the darkness. Levin states that “Mr Brook’s treatment of the text is at one point cavalier,” but I didn’t notice this. I was impressed with the production, the memory of it having remained with me for 46 years.
    Several years ago I saw The Winter’s Tale at Exeter’s Northcott Theatre. I did not know the story and therefore it was like watching a new play for the first time. Again, it was wonderful.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from RANDOM JOTTINGS

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading