To think Shakespeare is boring and crap !

[Lardlizard]

Bloody hate it

@thecatsthecats

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.

I like that. @Cats

I'm going to use that for myself, too. Next time I'm in a good book and feel that way. Usually, I'm so in there I feel like a part of the scenery and that the characters are speaking my thoughts (when they say something I agree with).

The power of writing, eh?

Year 9 and 10 homework? Yep, me too 😱

I’m 56. I still don’t like it.

The History Boys was ironically full of those moments for me, as I was applying to study history at most of the universities mentioned at the time the film came out.

Even more ironically I'd had a similar thought myself before I ever heard it. He's comparing poetry about soldiers lost and buried in foreign soil when he makes that speech.

I would give it one last go though by going to see a live production

I am not sure the theatres will be open any time soon.

www.rsc.org.uk/news/coronavirus

We do Romeo and Juliet with our Year 6s. They LOVE it! The drama, the fighting, the tragedy! You have to pitch it at the right level to the audience so we unpick the language for them so they enjoy the plot and characters motivations. We had some turn up to world book day as characters from it, which I think counts as a win.

Seeing as no-one's mentioned it, I highly recommend the CBeebies version of Midsummer Night's Dream. It's only 45 minutes but done with mostly original language, with lots of cuts to Shakepeare offstage explaining to the dimwits Hook and Line from Swashbuckle whatever context is needed.

It's really funny and my kids watched it a dozen times. The CBeebies Tempest is also good but without putting the sex scenes in, it boils down to too much Justin Fletcher.

Primary school have a bunch of children's Shakespeares (and the Marcia Williams series of books taking every subject and turning it into cartoon strips, which I highly recommend for anyone struggling to homeschool), and I've witnessed kids arguing about their favourite play.

Shakespeare isn't my favourite playwright - I prefer Marlowe and Brecht - but the Tempest and Macbeth are a couple of my favourite plays.

There's also , which I saw in primary school and had completely forgotten about.

You've never seen a live production? His plays weren't designed to be read. They were the soaps of their day. Hie thee to a playhouse!

Not sure about this Shakespeare chap but Francis Bacon was a bloody genius!

I 'did' Macbeth at school and didn't like it or understand it then. That probably put me off for decades.
Then I took a job teaching literacy (and numeracy) to smallish classes of year 7s and 8s, most of whom were on the SEN register.
I introduced the unit by handing out copies of Andrew Matthews' Shakespeare Stories for pairs of pupils to read and report back to their peers.
I can't say that we spent much time taking apart the language; my principal aim was to open their minds to enjoying the stories told in the plays. The year 7s pretty much loved Macbeth (scary witches and bloody murders) and the year 8s enjoyed the humour in a Midsummer Night's Dream.
Having to adapt them for my charges gave me a fresh appreciation of Shakespeare's writing.

Thanks for this thread OP - I have spent the afternoon watching short bursts of The Hollow Crown on Youtube and have ordered the DVD!

Anyone who doesn't "get" or appreciate Shakespeare - name or describe a modern/current TV series or film drama that you adore. Shakespeare will have covered it.

You've never seen a live production? His plays weren't designed to be read.

There speaks the voice of cultural capital.

Yes yabu.

I agree. Shakespeare is nothing compared to Fifty Shades of Grey

I can understand people not liking it, it's a matter of taste ( after all I think Eastenders and all reality shows are shite). But not understanding it? How can you not understand it? The plots aren't that complicated and the English is perfectly understandable - it's not Chaucer.

And the plays are all so different, you can't just say "they're all boring". For A level we did Richard II and Antony & Cleopatra. They are so different it led to a big debate about did Shaky really write them all.

I've seen Richard II (twice), Macbeth, Lear and The Tempest on stage. Again, all so different and each brilliant in its own way. I also saw Henry IV ( part I I think). Absolutely awful.

@KelpHelper - I completely believe your story about being spellbound in the rain at The Globe. I once took a school group of teens to As You Like It at The Globe. They were whining about having to go to boring Shakespeare. About 10 minutes in, one of the other teachers nudged me to look at the pupils, and they were all mesmerised, open mouthed and leaning forward. They came out afterwards really excited, just like my DC did after Lenny henry's Comedy of Errors.

Shakespeare done badly is excruciating and incomprehensible, but done well, there's nothing better (Andrew sexy priest Scott's Hamlet with the ghost appearing on the security cameras and his mother's wedding celebrations to his sleazy uncle going on and on and on. Genius.)

@Lasttraineast - I left school more than 25 years ago, so no. Why?

YABU. Love a good Shakespeare performance. A bad performance is a bit crap though.

I don’t have the patience to try and understand his work but I really love modern literature. Jane Austen is about as old as my tastes go. I have studied Shakespeare, seen several plays, acted in some and still don’t like or understand them really. But I still wouldn’t call them crap!

I don’t massively enjoy reading it (and I was an English freak), but I love seeing it performed.
I don’t think many plays read well as a leisure activity though-they were written to be performed after all. Unfortunately most people only experience it at school that way.

But I’d watch it all day long.

To each his/her own, I think the same about Fools and Horses, Star Wars. anything with the word 'celebrity' in the title and any programme encouraging amateurs to try and bake, sew, sing etc etc..

Agree with others - it needs to be watched (a film if live performance isn't an option) rather than read.

Many of the themes are universal and still relevant. Last year I head a radio programme about gangs and knife crime. I'd just watched Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet with DS1 who was doing it for GCSE. The parallels were striking (misplaced loyalties/impetuous teens with access to weapons/spur of the moment choices having fatal implications etc).

So much of his language has seeped into English we're barely aware of it

Are you thirteen and three quarters, as you sound as if you are...