Quick poll - would you take an under-11 to King Lear? Yes or no?

[Janh]

(beety need not reply! )

I spent my childhood being taken to see totally inappropriate things - huge amounts of shakespeare, wagner (aged 11), the elephant man at the National (with a naked elephant man for most of the performance (I was about 12), Nicholas Nickleby ( two 5 hours performances on seperate days) - Aaaargh, I ask you.

Personally I wouldn't care if I never saw another shakepeare in my life.

Well that's very strange, Marina - I actually had an image of F Kendall in my head for 12th Night but thought the Good Life had intruded - I must have seen both and mixed them up! (I did like RB as M.)

Comedy most certainly not Alec McC's forte janh
Interestingly, they made Much Ado twice for the series and binned the first film completely (it never got shown but I remember it being trailled in Radio Times). It had Penny Keith in it as Beatrice. Remade version opted for a lissom Cherie Lunghi instead...

At the time I wasn't sure, I recall thinking "OK I am going to do this the best I can" (to turn it, I think, into something purely objective) so putting everything into it & reading very expressively. He was a rather gifted teacher, and who knows what is going on in that sort of person? He may not have known himself. Unlike the cow who singled out my Jewish friend, who knew just what she was doing.

No. You run the risk of putting them off Shakespeare. Gruesome eye scene apart, it is hard to follow if you don't know the story well. Other plays might be more accessible.

No. I wouldn't take an under 11 to see any Shakespeare unless it was a special children's production.

Also you would put them off jelly for life, of course.

The thing that I would adore to have revived and would take my 6 & 5 yos to in the twink of an eye is the cycle of Mystery Plays the National (& Tony Harrison) did, maybe as much as twenty years ago.

Now, then, who's got influence?

Bink, no influence, but there is a commercially available DVD of the South African co-production of the Mysteries, Yiimangaliiso, which got rave reviews at the Wilton and transferred to the West End...

No, not KL in my view. The whole eye-gouging thing is a bit graphic. At one performance in Stratford I made the mistake of sitting in the front row wearing white trousers - got spattered with blood. And if he's a very "verbal" child some of the text is a bit much too.... "dry up her organs of increase" for example. Bit strong for an under-11 I think. But it's only my view

Blood and jelly! Yum!

Lonelymum, really? Not even eg frogs's Dream in the park?

Titus Andronicus, bring it on! If we are talking wildly unsuitable Shakespeare that is.

Or, if you want it all, Theatre of Blood - but the Vincent Price movie, not the recent stage version.

It's quite misogynist too..."but to the girdle do the gods inherit, beneath is all the fiend's" etc. I wouldn't want a pre-pubescent boy listening to it. And it might give him nightmares

I once did see a gender-reversed one (Queen Lear, with sons, you get the picture) which was sort of interesting, certainly as regards the woman-hating bits. But in other ways, not at all interesting - suddenly it was only to-be-expected, in a dull way, that a matriarch whose power was waning would do destructive emotional mindgames with her children. Which then made you go back to the Shakespeare, suddenly seeing the originality of Lear as yer male protagonist.

Didn't it also make that sheer impotence unsurprising as well - the lack of crumbling, if you see what I mean?

I don't think I could have sat through that Bink I would have ended up being thrown out for muttering.

Or throwing stuff MOM
Was this a college production perchance Bink or was Kathryn Hunter involved ?

or even wossername, Fiona Shaw?

I think it was professional but it was in the States. And ages ago. Might ask my-mutual-friend-with-Blu (and MI), who I'm seeing this w/e. It was all probably his fault.

MI, do you mean Lear's/Gloucester's impotence? - that if you see them as old women it's unsurprising to see the younger generation just contemptuously shrugging off the elder?

Confess I'm not sure what you mean by lack of crumbling ... ?

Only as a punishment

I meant - incoherently - that Lear crumbles - shockingly. I don't think that you'd get the same shock with a woman, however matriarchal, particularly an old one, would you?

I see - yes, absolutely. Swapping the roles turned it into stereotype. Which is quite separately unpleasant - ie, to realise that it wouldn't have the same hit if it were a woman - but hasn't got anything to do with Shakespeare.

I don't like King Lear (being one of 3 daughters!), that Poor TOm needs a kick up the Jacksy. I wouldn't take an over 70 year old to see it
Sorry, not very helpful!

Marina, I didn't thank you for telling me about the South African mysteries - sorry - thanks! If that's ever revived either ... It was the experience of swilling around in a huge dark space, with half-familiar things happening at all angles and a Yorkshireman like a live boulder being God at you - unforgettable.