'Macbeth' vs. 'Pulp Fiction'

Well aren't you glad I put the inverted commas around 'Macbeth' there. Could you imagine "Macbeth vs. 'Pulp Fiction'"? I'm not entirely sure how it'd work - maybe Butch (Macbeth) is Marsellus's (Duncan) prize fighter, and after killing Vince (the old Thane of Cawdor) he realises he can overthrow Marsellus - maybe it wouldn't work, that was a silly idea. Anyway, at least I can pick out some similarities, if a little tenuous, as  my task over this half-term is to write an epic piece of coursework. It is a 1,500 word essay, equivalent to 10% of my entire A-level (insert terrified emoji here), based on a question of our composition.

Originally I was going to come up with something quite long and convoluted like exploring the paranoia, the lengths people will go to in order to achieve power and then the lengths in order to maintain it, as paranoia is a theme in 'Macbeth' which really interests me, and it's sort of applicable to 'Pulp Fiction'.

'Othello' - Play review

I was intending to watch those 4 'Othello' DVDs from the library all before I watched the show (I'm currently halfway through the third) but extenuating circumstances occurred, and I was fairly sure after watching the first one I knew the story anyway. I've seen Frantic Assembly once before, I saw their 'Beautiful Burnout' at the Nuffield 3 years ago for my drama GCSE and that just totally blew me away. Since then I started acting myself, and my director at the Nuffield Youth Theatre, Max Lindsay, is always saying how he got such and such an exercise from Frantic, or something drew an influence from them. At Hampshire Youth Theatre we even had a workshop with them for 'Great Expectations'.

So since starting acting myself and being involved in a lot of Frantic-inspired stuff I haven't actually seen a Frantic show, and what with me trying to watch as many Shakespeare films as possible before going to drama school, and what with the £5 tickets for Nuffield YT members, Frantic's 'Othello' was the perfect chance to see something awesome and personally significant.

And god daaaaaaaaaaaaamn that is how you do Shakespeare my friends, that is how you do Shakespeare.

If you want a bit of background if you haven't seen it already, it's been modernised to a bar/pub in northern England… On the Isle of Wight we'd call the society 'chavs', but I've got out of the habit of using that pathetic word thankfully. I just mean it's set in a violent, patriarchal hyper-sexualised microcosm (in which they all happen to wear nike hoodies, sweatpants and trainers) in which one's violence is what establishes and maintains one's status. These microcosms exist in contemporary society but it's perfectly possible to translate this story of violence, jealousy and revenge into one as they are separate from the values of the rest of society. And the translation is perfect: the words are all the same but the inflection and context give them different meaning - the 'Turks' are a rival gang coming to attack 'the Cypress', the pub in which the play is set, and Othello's 'lieutenant' is a trusted friend, etc., etc.

'1984' - Play review

Just as a warning I've seen this play once before already and worked a lot out about it, so there will be definite spoilers. Careful reading if you haven't seen it, I want to mention everything about how awesome it was.

Last year for my Drama and Theatre Studies AS I was fortunate enough to go on a trip to Salisbury to watch Headlong's '1984' in the Salisbury Playhouse. I ended up writing about it in my 'Live productions scene' exam and got an A for drama overall. So you can understand my excitement when, almost exactly a year later, I learn that Headlong are bringing back their '1984' and to my local Nuffield Theatre.

There's something to be said for saying the play more than once. If it's just the same script done by different companies that can be helpful, as I'm learning from my watching of all the Shakespeare films I can get my hands on, for seeing the various ways the text can be interpreted, and through that odd form of cross-examination getting closer to what the original writer may have been trying to say.

But watching the exact same show is something quite different entirely, especially with the long time difference.

'Three Men in a Boat' - Play review

I'm a part of the Nuffield Youth Theatre, and one of the peers of being thus is that I can get £5 tickets to most shows which come to the Nuffield. This time, as with 'The Events', my director stressed how good this play is, so I went along to see what it's all about. (Just for the record I also have tickets to go and see 'Othello' and '1984')

Normally I don't think I'd really choose to watch a comedy. From my experience, I much prefer tragedies, horror, war, things with a sad ending, or at least where characters have to face up to serious adversity. Much of my new experience watching Shakespeare's plays is changing my opinion of comedies and happy plays, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm not much of a laugher. I'm sure a normal person would have 'been in stitches', but I laughed more than I normally do.

If you don't know 'Three Men in a Boat' (I know I sat down in the theatre knowing nothing about it), it's set in a pub, and it's three London gentlemen humorously telling the humorous story of their holiday on the Thames. The three main actors had excellent comedic synergy between them, and because it was a something of a play-within-a-play whenever they made a mistake in telling the story they could make it part of the joke that the main characters aren't very good at telling their story.