Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
Last week, I reviewed Prudence by Gail Carriger, set in an alternate history version of London and India. Jackie continued her recap of her trips to the British Isles with Ireland photos from 1991 (and some comparisons from 2005) — check out the bit about W. B. Yeats. Sim had another close encounter with Colin Firth, this time in the V&A. Becky read a book filled with quotes by the eminently quotable Winston Churchill. Jean reviewed the book Home Fires — I hadn’t realized that the series was rooted in a book.
On the eve of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, we saw a Shakespeare play. Kind of. We attended a Shake 38 presentation in conjunction with the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis. Shake 38: 38 plays, 38 performances, 38 places is described as:
A free, five-day community festival with just one rule: Make Shakespeare’s 38 plays happen any way you see fit.
Power: A King John Story presented by because why not? theater company (logo artwork by Nancy Nigh)My sister-in-law’s tiny theater company (because why not? theater company) was assigned King John. Did you know that Shakespeare wrote a play called King John? Not one of the better known of his 38 plays. If you’ve seen The Lion in Winter, John is one of the sons of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. This is also the same King John who gets cast in a villainous role in the Robin Hood tales. And, it was King John who signed the Magna Carta.
Shannon Geier (my sister-in-law) and the because why not? theater company re-interpreted King John as a mafia story and it worked! The family in-fighting, the power struggles between families, and the loyalties and betrayals all fit right in — whether it’s the medieval British royalty or the American Mob.
Did you participate in any 400th anniversary events to honor Shakespeare?
