1/ As other sufferers would understand, once you have caught the Shakespeare bug, it’s incurable—you read the plays and listen to audio recordings and watch productions and watch film adaptations and read centuries of criticism—and if you happen to live in London, you look for the places associated with Shakespeare.
In May, I went on a Shakespeare tour with Declan McHugh, who specialises in Shakespeare and serial killers.
Last Sunday, I went on another Shakespeare tour with Helen Palmer of Elan Walks.
(Helen said to me “So you’re the Bardolator in the group.” How did she know? you ask. I’m a show-off, that’s how).
2/ On 25/9, I was at the Swan at the Globe with Himadri of Argumentative Old Git blog, having won two tickets, for the event celebrating 400 years of First Folio and the new edition by Folio Society.
Three gorgeous volumes, £1000. Limited edition.
I can’t afford them—I’m just a poor girl—but hey, I was one of the first people outside Folio Society to have seen and felt these beautiful books.
3/ It’s insane to me that souvenir shops in Amsterdam are filled with Van Gogh and those in Vienna are filled with Mozart and Gustav Klimt, but souvenir shops in London just sell Harry Potter, the royal family, and London symbols such as the red bus. No Shakespeare. No Dickens. Rarely Sherlock Holmes. Just contemporary pop culture nonsense.
4/ I’m currently reading and enjoying Neil MacGregor’s Shakespeare’s Restless World: An Unexpected History in Twenty Objects.
It’s an interesting concept.
One can enjoy Shakespeare books anywhere, but it feels a bit more personal when you recognise place names (ah, Shoreditch!) or you can easily pop to Bankside and walk around the area where he worked.
(Yep, I’m rubbing it in).
5/ There is a Shakespeare Museum opening in London next year. I am excited but worried.
6/ If you’re heartbroken (or planning to be), I recommend London. Lots of attractions to see, things to do, places to visit.
Since moving to London, I have seen only two copies of the First Folio: the one at British Library and the one at the Globe.
Jealous of your access. To put a brighter spin on things, perhaps the British focus on popular culture because they actually produce things that have an effect on popular culture. If the Netherlands had items of popular culture the world consumed, I think they would have those things in their gift shops instead of Van Gogh.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
DeleteI don't mind pop culture if the souvenir shops also have Shakespeare, Dickens, etc. but they don't. If you want Shakespeare things, you have to go somewhere like the Globe. The souvenir shops near the Globe don't even have Shakespeare stuff, I have looked, and yet pop culture also gets into the souvenir shop of the Globe, like Shakspeare's Avengers or Shakespeare's Star Wars. It's a plague.
Brian Aldiss said that Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker was "The Great Grey Holy Book of Science Fiction." Surely if western civilization itself has a Great Grey Holy Book, it must be the First Folio.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteI don't expect tourist culture to cater to my literary interests anymore. After all, it is focused almost entirely on capital, not any sort of heritage preservation, and even less so artistic appreciation (both of which would doom capital by its very nature). They sell what sells and they need the money. Could you imagine what they would make otherwise? Funko POP! Hamlet and Amy Dorrit? Replicas of Charles Dicken's beard? Maybe we've been shown a mercy
ReplyDeleteHaha guess what, I've just visited Stratford-upon-Avon.
DeleteWhat a curious person you are ….how wonderful….
ReplyDeleteHaha.
Delete