Return to Maggie's Bar

Emily, Amy, Benji, Sally, Maggie, a May evening, a starry starry night

Inclusively Injected with love

Last Summer, we were invited to Maggie’s Bar (click here for reminder). Yesterday evening we returned to enjoy the additional gazebo which warded off the meterological uncertainties of Spring 2021. Benji sat on Sally’s knee (as in collage above.) Nibbles were nibbled. Discussions roamed around the past and our present lives, hopes, dreams and lockdown experiences, the prophetic Corona cushion, WhoGivesACrapRecycledToiletRoll, TV, cinema, theatre, the future….  On our return to the bar, we could toast the gospel that the entire Shipley branch of the Harry Potter Film Club have now been Covid-Vaccinated, Double-Jabbed, Inclusively-Injected…. There was also a Birthday Bonus present for Sally. Not only does Maggie run a very popular bar, but her eyes, hands and talents can craft lovingly produced Cross Stitch works of art. As Shakespeare truly muses:

I count myself in nothing else so happy

As in a soul remembering my good friends

A Cross Stitched gift, more signs of Spring, ecological toilet rolls....

Talking Shakespeare Yksi (One)

Outer images from last Christmas, inner images from 2020 prep

Member Benefits

Christmas is a-coming – a few purchases have now been made (mincemeat mixed, Christmas cake being “fed” monthly, a few gifts have been wrapped….) I’m allowing Christmas to infiltrate my life in November having, in the sixty previous years, banned all thoughts until December 1st but in this Covidacious year I take pleasure however and whenever I can. (Full disclosure: Sally still wears The Christmas Crown and is entirely responsible for the spicy aromas of fruity baking.) One advantage of having a Royal Shakespeare Company membership is being granted access to resources giving insights into the ongoing bottomless chasm of Shakespeare exploration. During both lockdowns a number of actors are giving interviews under the title Talking Shakespeare and that is just what they did. I’ll post about them all in due course, a few at a time….

Greg Doran intervewing Adjoa Andoh, Ray Fearon, Judi Dench and Alex Gilbreath

Adjoa Andoh and Ray Fearon

• Adjoa Andoh, known for Doctor Who and Casualty, is known to me especially for two stunning performances: as Ulysees in Troilus and Cressida and as an astonishing Richard II in an all-black, all-female production of Richard II at The Globe. Her interview ranged widely over all her Shakespearean roles but, most powerfully, about her personal life and commitment to community work.
• Ray Fearon revealed how he fell into acting by accident and started performing in amateur community projects. He was inspired when working as an extra in Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money to (successfully) apply for Rose Bruford drama school. He worked at Liverpool Everyman and Manchester’s Royal Exchange before rising through the ranks at both the RSC and the National Theatre. His big breaks at the RSC came in a touring production of Romeo and Juliet and then (his third) Othello with the frisson of his Desdemona being played by his Juliet, Zoe Waites. He gave a moving account of his experience playing Pericles, a magnificent performance that stuck in my own mind when I saw it, and then talked about the sensational all-black Julius Caesar when he played a scarily dangerous Mark Antony.

Adjoa Andoh in Richard II and Troilus and Cressida, Ray Fearon in Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet and Othello

Judi Dench and Alexandra Gilbreath

• Judi Dench revealed herself to be the trooper she is and went the furthest back in time to her childhood in York and her early appearances at the Old Vic before marking off virtually all of Shakespeare’s heroines in her 70-year career. She talked about some of her legendary performances with typical humility – and plenty of funny anecdotes – but came up to date with her recent stage work that I’ve been lucky enough to witness live, in Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merry Wives (musical) of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Winter’s Tale.
• Alexandra Gilbreath’s throaty tones have always drawn me in to her performances and she was enthusiastic and insightful about her major roles, all of which I saw in Stratford: Hermione (The Winter’s Tale), Juliet, Rosalind (As You Like It) Kate (The Taming of the Shrew), Olivia (Twelfth Night) and, alongside Judi Dench, in the musical version of Merry Wives.

Judi Dench in Macbeth, Merry Wives, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Alex Gilbreath in As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale

What sport shall we devise here in this garden?

Sally, Emily, Michael, Alex and Janet at Hidcote

“our sea-walled garden, the whole land….”
Shakespeare famously used gardening as a metaphor for how to conduct your life: seeding, planting, tending, nurturing, weeding, watering, pruning, feeding, trimming, harvesting, composting, laying fallow.... And he presents England as a giant garden that needs the same treatment. John O'Gaunt used his "royal throne of kings" speech to cement the idea, referencing "this sceptred isle....this earth of majesty....this other Eden, this demi-paradise....this precious stone....this dear, dear land...." Most people forget that the speech leads up to the concept that this gorgeous land is now being run by rich landlords who have effectively destroyed the country from within - hello, Conservative party - (my post-Brexit analysis of the speech - here - remains the same.)

The bees and butterflies fluttering by
In the muddled, topsy-turvy, venal, lie-ridden road to Brexit, life for ordinary peasants goes on (yes, I am a committed Remoaner and proud of it and yes, if you are a Brexiter, I hope you're right and life's going to be lovely but don't bleat about how it's the EU's fault that they're protecting their own interests - of course they are, you numpties, and quite right too, just as we should but we're the ones leaving - and let me know what you imagined would happen with Ireland and fruit-picking and visas and nationals living abroad....) but, this post has such pretty pictures that I'm going to bury the politics and concentrate on what a lovely day it was at Hidcote because life goes on.... the peasants continue to till the land (literally and metaphorically).... Michael will still provide magnificent picnics on the ground in the orchard in order to keep his and my family nourished amongst the whips and scorns of life. And, dodging showers on sultry summer days, we will still find time to answer the Queen's question in Richard II:

What sport shall we devise here in this garden
To drive away the heavy thought of care?

We could while away the hours conversing with the flowers....

Hidcote
Hidcote is a lovely National Trust Arts and Crafts garden created by the horticulturist, Major Lawrence Johnstone. The effect is of wandering through a series of "rooms" in the open air as all the different areas feel like you've entered a new space. The queen and her lady (in Richard II that is) overhear two gardeners chuntering in iambic pentameter, wondering why they should bother to "keep law and form and due proportion" when "the whole land is full of weeds."

O, what a pity is it

That (the king) had not so trimm’d and dress’d his land

As we this garden!

There is so much goodness in the hearts of ordinary people, it is important to spend times wandering the highways and byways of the land - and wiling away the hours in places like Hidcote - to remember that the news onslaught is not the only story. We need time to smell the roses and forget the king.

Back to Joyce's for home-made buns....

Boy, let me see the writing

Aspiring author - will my book ever be a page-turner?

Murder your darlings

In Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Duke of York repeats “let me see the writing” twice in the same scene. It’s very tough to show someone your writing. But when you do, miraculous things can happen. Having presented daughter Emily with another new section of my novel to look at, she asked a pertinent question and I removed 250 words within seconds. And instantly saw how much better the page was. Clearer. More vivid. You need a critical eye to help murder your darlings.

And there it is in writing, fairly drawn

So far Emily is my only reader. My “First Reader.” My “Prime Reader.” And will be the only one until I am certain I want a second reader. If I ever do. I want to spend every second with my characters. It’s noticeable that my other retirement projects have fallen away. I’m walking less, which I must change. I’m mopping and hoovering less, which can wait. I haven’t really spent time on jigsaws or piano practice. What happened to learning Italian? Facebook and Emails barely get a look-in. I’m behind on TV, cinema and theatre-going. But I’m fully immersed in the crises on the planet Rhenium.

Bruising edits....

 

Bruising edits

The trilogy was originally called The Akolyte Wars but even that’s changed – it’s now The Rhenium Wars (editor: PS at some point in the future it becomes Rhenium Tales!) and all past labels in this blog have been changed accordingly but, for the record, that change happened on May 1st 2017. As did Raydan’s solo instrument. (He’s my first person character.)  Raydan used to play the violin, but now he plays the mandolin. Why the change? Something clicked about something in a future chapter and a mandolin it had to be…. Write. Edit. Write and edit. Write. Write. Write more. Edit later.

Raydan, possibly, aged 35+ (he's 14 when the book starts....)

Kill your darlings

I attended a Guardian masterclass on writing suspense with Claire McGowan and a very inspiring day it was too with terrific follow-up materials and exercises to complete. It helped me fully understand the notion of murdering or killing your darlings, that famous writerly advice about being ruthless in the editing stage. Don’t be precious about things you’ve written. Slash. Burn. Purge.

Scene of an inspiring writing day....

Origin of phrase?

The true origin of the phrase is lost, I think. Contenders for its invention include: Anton Chekhov, G K Chesterton, William Faulkner, F Scott Fitzgerald, Alan Ginsberg, Eudora Welty and Oscar Wilde. But I’ll quote two:
From Stephen King’s On Writing: a memoir of the craft

“kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

And from Arthur Quiller-Couch in his 1914 lecture On Style

“If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

For no reason other than....

England, bound in with the triumphant sea

I hope the 52% are right and, along with the other 48%, I’m wrong

Nothing lasts forever. Everything changes. Change – whether slow and gradual or sudden and violent – is an unstoppable natural force. In every local council election I’ve ever voted I’ve been quite content with the outcome – I’ve always seen a Labour or Green Councillor elected where I’ve been living. In the nine General Elections where I’ve had a vote (1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015) I’ve only been happy twice: yes, that’s you, Tony Blair (or at least Chris Leslie who was the young Labour MP who ousted long-standing Conservative Marcus Fox from Shipley in 1997 and then kept the seat in 2001.)

Tony Blair, Chris Leslie, Marcus Fox and Philip Davies

The AV Referendum in 2011

Now I’ve had the experience of two national referenda (one on AV in 2011 and the EU In/Out vote in 2016) and in both cases I have experienced a disappointing outcome. In the first referendum I think the wrong question had been asked for what the majority of people polled wanted (instead of “Should the ‘Alternative Vote’ system be used instead of ‘first past the post’?” the politically actively-engaged wanted something like “Should parliament debate and implement a system different to ‘first past the post’?” The choice in the referendum was between the status quo and a choice that was not a popular alternative. And there was a low turn-out and very many young people were angry with Nick Clegg for climbing into a coalition with the Conservative party.

 

 

The EU Referendum in 2016

The recent EU referendum was called primarily to put an end to in-fighting within the Conservative party. The result turned out to be, in my opinion

• a protest against the Labour and Conservative governments’ inability to manage the consequences of immigration
• a class revolt against the perception of globalisation
• an inability of the Remain campaign to counter the oft-repeated (mythical) Brexit slogan of “Take back control”

Sadly the Brexit campaign persuaded the electorate to Vote Leave on a series of advertising promises and slogans that were misleading or impossible to achieve so, even in the space of two days after the result, key Brexit figures were admitting that

• £350 million per week cannot be put back into the NHS
• immigration levels will not be changing very soon
• economic conditions are likely to be unstable for an unspecified time
• Cornwall and South Wales will not be receiving UK funding equivalent to their EU grants

and, within hours of the decision sinking in

• The Prime Minister resigned
• Scotland announced its intention to reopen Scottish Independence plans
• Northern Ireland’s fragile peace settlement stirred up sectarian arguments about the border with Ireland
• Brexiters were publically wishing they hadn’t voted leave
• Donald Trump and Marine le Pen congratulated Brexiters
• Other far-right organizations throughout Europe rejoiced
• Racist attacks increased in public throughout the UK according to social media postings
• The pound dropped to its lowest level against the dollar in 31 years
• £122bn pound was wiped from the FTSE 100 within minutes of the result
• Europe made it clear that they wanted Brexit sooner rather than later to end uncertainty
• France is pressing for Britain to take charge of its own border instead of processing migrants in Calais

  

  Dangerous politicans and ordinary people who have been hoodwinked, imho

The big statistics

• 17,410,742 voted to leave 
• 16,141,241 voted to remain 
• 13,047,993 could have voted but didn’t (72% of people voted)

One way of looking at the overall figures is that 29 million didn’t vote to leave and 17 million have voted to leave. I know that is not the way democracy works but, if we decide to an adopt an Australian-style points system for immigration (which incidentally increased the number of immigrants settling in Australia….) I hope we can also adopt their voting policy which says that if you are eligible to vote it is mandatory and you get penalties for refusing to vote (you can spoil your ballot paper if you want to protest about the voting choices.)

The age statistics (the saddest statistics of all)

• 18 – 24 year olds: 27% Leave; 73% Remain 
• 25 – 34 year olds: 38% Leave; 62% Remain 
• 35 – 44 year olds: 48% Leave; 52% Remain 
• 45 – 54 year olds: 56% Leave; 44% Remain 
• 55 – 64 year olds: 57% Leave; 43% Remain 
• 65 – 99 year olds: 60% Leave; 40% Remain

In other words, people over 45 (who won’t live with the long-term consequences) voted to deny people under 45 (who WILL live with the consequences) what they wanted. And don’t get me started on the fact that 16 and 17 year olds can join the army, give blood and pay taxes but still don’t get a vote….

Pyrrhic Victory

A pyrrhic victory is one where even the commanders wish they hadn’t won because the costs have been too great. The term is used as an analogy in fields such as business, politics, and sports to describe struggles that end up ruining the victor. There are already signs that the Brexit leaders are unsettled because David Cameron has unexpectedly resigned without triggering Article 50 - and they are hurriedly meeting to formulate the Brexit plans, speculating about who would be brave enough (anyone?) to trigger Article 50. In the case of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, he defeated the Romans at Heraclea in 280BC and Asculum in 279BC but his army suffered irreplaceable casualties. And the Romans kept coming. And coming. And coming. In Plutarch’s account he cries:

“If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.”

The Romans kept coming. One anxiety I have is that the people who voted Brexit will gradually realise that the country is not suddenly Ye Olde Merrie England and

• Immigration will continue much as before (unless there is a proper overhaul of tax evasion, zero hours contracts, minimum wages, working tax credits, back-to-work programmes, the education system, the entire welfare system including pensions – all of which could have politically happened whilst still being a member of the European Union)
• Laws will continue much as before (unless there is an erosion of workers’ rights, health and safety recommendations, extra laws to try to get the same rights as we currently have for trading as part of the European bloc)
• All the changes to the law, to trade agreements, to infrastructural and cultural investment will take many years, a lot of money (I wonder where that will come from?) and, oh yes, a great many bureaucrats to work it out. Who has the skills to do this sort of work? (People working for the European Union…. Or, more worryingly, Brexiters who don’t have a clue….?)

  

  In a few years time....

I hope the 52% are right and, along with the other 48%, I’m wrong

I started with the above sub-heading and it is worth repeating. I find it very easy to admit when I’m wrong and I always apologise if that happens. I hope the dreams of the Brexiteers are realised, as long as that doesn’t mean England becomes a mean-spirited, inward-looking, isolated land that gets stuck in the past. Past blogs have outlined

• My main arguments for Voting Remain (“Remain or Brexit pursued by a (Russian) bear?”)
• Why England is genetically European (“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”)
• Shakespeare’s attitude to refugees and migrants (“The sea hath cast me on the rocks”)
• Why some older people who fought in Europe support Remain (“Harry’s Last Stand”)
• Shakespeare’s pan-European world view (“Would Shakespeare want us to leave Europe?”)
• Myths about how Europe controls us (“Europe and the “Tampon Tax””)

I'm not traumatised by being on the “losing side” (I like being in a minority and an underdog) although, quoting from my blog about "Amsterdam, City of Sin":

“It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” (Anne Frank)

Financial Times reader Nicholas Barrett's viral post

What have we done? (John of Gaunt in Richard II says)

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry….
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out….
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

The United Kingdom, Great Britain, Little England (and Wales) - what does the future hold?

Wasted time....

Ben Whishaw as Richard II in the BBC's Hollow Crown series.
Credit: http://grancontessa.tumblr.com/post/120927108205

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me….

Richard II’s words (above) are poignant reminders to Seize the Day. Minutes pass, as do hours, days, weeks, months and years. I am approaching my second anniversary of being retired from full-time teaching and Easter (for me) has always been a good time of year to reflect on the past, present and future. What has happened since retiring? Have I wasted the time?

Five a month

Five a month? Tick!

In my first blog, I recklessly stated that I hoped to be achieving five posts a month by August 2016. I have been doing that now since August 2015 so today (no April Fool, this, or maybe I’m an April Fool for writing it in a public space….) I’m turning to my next medium-term retirement goal which is to work more systematically on longer pieces of writing, in addition to the blog. Therefore from today onwards (April 1st 2016) every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from waking to 1pm I’ll be in the study calling myself a “writer.” As in,

Hello, I used to be a teacher but I retired from that and now I’m a “writer”.

I hope by April 2018 I won't feel the need to put "writer" in inverted commas. Two years from now. April 2018. I'm giving myself two years. In my life I've always measured Real Change by the span of two years passing before you can think of a change as embedded.

Why not be a “writer” every Tuesday too?

Tuesday is going to be Domestic Day. “Big shop” at the supermarket for the week, hoovering, mopping and ironing – my weekly chores…. And of course the Tuesday visit to Slimming World, as announced in a January blog. I’ve got my “You’ve lost a stone and a half” certificate now. And I am still enjoying (a lot of) food, wine and plenty of treats. So something has clicked for me after three decades of ignoring the pounds piling on – thanks, Slimming World!

So doth time waste me in retirement?

Not if you count:

• better quality time spent with family and friends 
• decluttering over thirty years of teaching resources
• learning to sleep better, eat better and get more exercise
• fragments of the glimpses of the inklings of feeling a little bit like a “writer” (in inverted commas for now.) 

I have a (treasured gift of a) bowl with a message painted into the pattern. It sums up this blog entry, an answer to Richard II’s self-pity: The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

In the bleak midwinter

Boxing Day in the Black Rock in Wakefield

Everlasting bond of fellowship

In the parky January days it’s comforting to remember the gatherings over Christmas – on Boxing Day, Christmas Day and Christmas Eve. “Thy friendship makes us fresh,” wrote Shakespeare in the first of his Henry VI plays.

Christmas Eve with the Lancelot-Barr-Grady Brigade

Hot ice and wondrous strange snow

It was equally thrilling in the past week to have a couple of days with astonishing ice displays and snow effects. Crystal shards and heaps of snow painting blades of grass, decorating bare branches, enclosing frosty canals. Made a change from floods (see Year of the Flood blog here.) A few months from now (all being well) we will enjoy short sleeves and vitamin D, but currently it’s invigorating to tread gingerly on the frozen footpaths, slippery towpaths, icy highways and bitterly-cold byways.

Top two pictures by Harriet

Red blood reigns in the winter’s pale

In Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Autolycus sings about the mysteries of nature, how even in the depths of winter, blood pumps through the veins (“Red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.”) Bulbs sprout through snow. The depths of winter contain the promise of spring. “What is six winters?” asks John of Gaunt in Richard II. “They are quickly gone.”

Frosty wind made moan

My (joint) favourite Christmas carol is the Holst setting of Christina Rossetti’s In the Bleak Midwinter. (My other  favourite is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.) I don’t know why In the Bleak Midwinter gets me so much: is it the tune? The minor key? Or the fact that Rossetti is in my top five poets of all time? The exquisite metaphors and similes? Or the final punchline in answer to the last verse’s question “What can I give Him?” – “Give my heart.”

Giving My Heart

This is my 18th month “retired from” teaching and at the turn of the year (Christmas/New Year) it’s a good time to look back and ponder. Since being retired I’ve noticed how much easier it is to tune in to other people without the distracting white noise of work, jobs, lists, tasks, schedules, phone calls, emails, annoyances, irritations, crises, lesson plans, timetables, assessments, marking, deadlines…. How do teachers do it? How did I ever do it? I truly madly deeply don’t believe I could do it today – or tomorrow. I don’t understand how I managed to do it for 32 years. I see my career now as a period of near-insanity. I can’t decide whether this is a natural feeling common to all retired teachers, a stage of retirement-grief, or a transfer of guilty feelings about how much energy, time and attention teaching stole from me. I know, though, that it feels good to have reclaimed my heart and brain and soul and begin the process of  “seeing” again. Seeing family. Seeing friends. Seeing winter and imagining the promise of spring.

This England: the 2015 General Election

Election dust is settling

Who knows what the next five years will bring politically? The Conservatives suggest we will avoid chaos under their rule but, if history teaches anything about the Tories and Europe, their party will soon be fighting each other about how to interpret the pledge to hold a referendum about staying or leaving Europe. Dangers ahead appear to include – (hyperlinks to articles on each one if you want further reading) –

• the arguments over Britain’s role in Europe.  In an increasingly globalised world, do we really want to stand alone?  I don’t.  I’m sure that in the future, those nations that form alliances will be stronger and safer than nations going it alone.
• the dilution of the Human Rights Act (although I predict that this is a red herring, given the way international law works)
• the independence and efficiency of the NHS (and a hope that already-rich companies don’t cream off too many bags of profit from clinical commissioning)
• the non-accountability of the academy programme in schools (so hopeful under Labour and now being used as a tool to hammer local services)
• further cuts to the welfare of vulnerable people (given that the biggest part of the welfare bill goes to pensioners and working tax credits i.e. pensioners and those being paid measly wages because of the profits being creamed off the top of the pile by the super-rich.)  I am especially concerned about the welfare of disabled people and those with mental illness – a concern that links to my worries for the NHS.
• a widening of the gap between the bottom of society and the super-rich who leech off the UK’s economy.  Shouldn’t The Spirit Level become compulsory reading for everyone who lives on the planet?
• I’m ambivalent about Scotland becoming independent as I’ve mentioned earlier – my head says yes even though my heart says no – though I think it will pave the way for a future Northern Territory!
  

John of Gaunt in Shakespeare’s Richard II:

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Patrick Stewart and Michael Pennington as John of Gaunt with their prophecies about England

Nil desperandum

This will pass
The world goes on
Even though Spring follows Winter and Autumn comes before
And Summer flares often enough across the land
Even though Time passes as surely as the Sun rises
And Governments that emerge will just as surely fall
Even though Boys and Girls will couple and depart
And Men and Women will endure and survive
Even though Death stalks the fields and reaps random targets
And Mothers squat, spread or kneel to squeeze out brats anew
Even though the Heart beats and sometimes feels shredded
Even though the Lungs fill and breathe, though often spray nonsense
Even though Love, Desire, Passion and Compassion
Are compromised by Doubt, Pain, Struggle and War
The world goes on
Hoc transibit

The original box set

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown....

Snappy titles
I am frequently astonished when I contemplate the scale of the sequence of Shakespeare’s history plays. If Shakespeare had been writing today, the credits would have probably had to include “based on Holinshed’s Chronicles with ideas from Edward Halle and Samuel Daniel” with Henry VI Part One (the third written) probably having to admit – “adapted from a play by Thomas Nashe.” The scholarly best-guess is that the first to be written was Henry IV Part Two AKA “The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade: and the Duke of Yorke's first claim unto the crowne” – a snappy title if ever there was one.

Sequels and prequels
This roaring success was followed by the sequel with another memorable title: “The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses, Lancaster and Yorke.” (PS Shakespeare couldn’t spell for toffee, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere.) A collaboration with (or adaptation of) Thomas Nashe's earlier material then rushed in the PREQUEL to this pair of plays in order to cash in on the popularity of the first two. The First Part Of Henry The Sixth appeared and the earlier-written plays were then re-titled Henry VI Part Two and Henry VI Part Three. This sequence of three plays became the first entertainment franchise since Ancient Greek times, topped off with a quadrilogy when Richard III roared onto the stage. Richard III was Shakespeare’s breakthrough work, popular immediately and increasingly popular all the way through to the present time.

“that bottled spider… that poisonous bunchback’d toad”

Four famous Richard IIIs: Ian McKellen, Antony Sher, Simon Russell Beale and Jonjo O'Neill

Mind-boggling!
Four plays, twelve hours of stage entertainment recreating the Wars of the Roses in a series of blistering set-pieces, comic interludes, heartbreaking anti-war speeches alongside patriotic calls to arms. It shows a whole nation. Some scenes are set in France. It presents Joan of Arc, Jack Cade, Margaret of Anjou, Richard Duke of York, Richard Duke of Gloucester, Warwick the Kingmaker, Suffolk, the saintly Henry VI, the charismatic Edward IV, the pitiful Edward V…. characters that come to vivid life whenever the plays are staged even metaphorical characters like A Son that has Killed his Father and A Father that has Killed his Son echoing each other in their grief and anguish at the horrors of civil war.

Memorable moments: Katy Stephens as Joan of Arc and, later, as Margaret of Anjou

Four successes; why not four prequels?
Not content with a quadrilogy, Shakespeare then went on to write four even more successful plays. In historical terms, these prequels led up to the events of the Wars of the Roses, starting with the lyrical Richard II, continuing with the sweep and grandeur of Henry IV Parts One and Two and the play that WInston Churchill and Laurence Olivier purloined for the British efforts in the Second World War, Henry V and the point at which Henry VI Part One takes off and the two quadrilogies become an octology. Characters have teemed from this second quadilogy into the national subconscious: Northumberland, Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt, Hal, Falstaff, Mistress Quickly, Poins, Bardolph, Hotspur, Glendower, Lady Percy, Pistol, Silence, Shallow, Fluellen, the Dauphin and Princess/Queen Katherine – not to mention the three very different titular kings.

A state of the nation series of plays
At the end of Richard III, Queen Elizabeth I’s grandfather is crowned saviour of the realm (a propagandist portrayal to flatter the queen and slander the Yorkist line.) Through the eight plays we see the rise and fall of great figures in history, both men and women; we see the disorder and chaos of a country in the throes of a civil war; we see the lurch from medieval to modern times; we see what it means to be a strong leader and a weak leader; we see murders, plots, secrets, betrayals, invasions, sieges, riots, miracles, political scheming, religious hypocrisy, family loyalty and family tragedy, the burden of power, the abuse of power; we see virtues and vices, reasons to be patriotic and reasons to attack your government.

Not-so-long-ago
The Wars of the Roses, the underlying political tension in eight of Shakespeare’s English history plays, was as far removed from the English citizens during Shakespeare’s time as the Boer War is from us.  Richard III died in 1485 and the plays were written between 1590 and 1601.  The way we perceive the late Victorian and Edwardian period is how the original audiences would have thought and felt about the events that were being portrayed at the jam-packed outdoor playhouses. At the premieres of these plays there would have been people whose grandparents had lived through (or indeed been killed) in the convulsive events depicted on stage. The nearest equivalent to their cultural spirit in modern times, to my knowledge, is Rona Munro’s glorious James Plays first shown at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014.