NEVER MIND THE SONNETS HERE’S THE Punk Bard
Four centuries before the Sex Pistols, Elizabethan theatre was as vibrant and violent as the punk rock scene, says a new series – and Shakespeare was its chief rebel SHAKESPEARE: RISE OF A GENIUS
The brilliant Judi Dench is just one of several great actors talking about Shakespeare’s genius in a three-part series marking the 400th anniversary of the First Folio – the first collected edition of his plays, published seven years after his death. Among those contributing are Brian Cox, Adrian Lester, Martin Freeman, Helen Mirren and Jessie Buckley.
Irish actress and singer Buckley describes the vibrant, violent Elizabethan theatre scene in which Shakespeare thrived as
‘the most punk expression possible’, while Dench is passionate about why the playwright’s works are still performed all over the world: ‘It’s his understanding of everything,’ she says. ‘Of love, of anger, of jealousy, of rage, melancholy. Who did it better? Who has ever done it better? I wish I’d met him.’
Shakespeare was a 23-year-old nobody when he arrived in London in 1587, and the theatre was an exciting new art form. In the fascinating documentary series there are dramatic recreations of events from the Bard’s life, but it’s the actors revealing what Will means to them that makes this a must-watch.
There’s a moving sequence in the first episode that cuts between 33-year-old Buckley and 88-year-old Dench – two gifted, award-winning actors with more than half a century between them – being infectiously enthusiastic about the same scene from Romeo And Juliet.
It is interspersed with mesmerising clips from Baz Luhrmann’s film
Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. ‘It is like music,’ says a rapturous Buckley.
‘That big scene, when you do it, it feels like there is a whole orchestra coming out of your mouth.’
Judi Dench has played most of
Shakespeare’s best roles for women, some twice, and has just published a book about the Bard and her love for him. She made her professional debut in 1957 playing Ophelia in Hamlet.
And on Who Do You Think You Are? two years ago, it was discovered she was a relative of a lady-in-waiting to the
Danish queen who lived at the castle that inspired Elsinore, the royal palace in Shakespeare’s tragedy.
We don’t know a huge amount for certain about the life of Shakespeare, even though he left such a large body of work, so the documentary examines the plays for clues about his life and to discover how a grammar-school boy from Stratfordupon-Avon – a glove-maker’s son – achieved such extraordinary success.
He is thought to have started out as a stagehand but within only a few years he was churning out box-office hits.
No doubt scholars will dispute some of the documentary’s claims, but for the ordinary viewer Shakespeare: Rise Of A Genius is an entertaining look at a creative virtuoso who is regarded as the greatest writer ever.