The Sun celebrates

From The Guardian

The Sun has published one of its best educational spreads today to mark the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birthday: "Happy Bard Day".
It was written by the paper's managing editor (and former Press Complaints Commission director), Stig Abell, who recently spent his tube journeys to work each day reading every one of Shakespeare's plays.
His knowledge has paid off. The pages contain summaries of all 37 plays plus some amusing spoof front pages created by John Perry, the man responsible for the paper's take on history, Hold Ye Front Page (see here and here).
Arguably the best of them is the one about Hamlet: "Massacre at the palace: Claudius killed, Queen poisoned. Hamlet and Laertes dead too." The pay-off is a gem: "Alas poor Yorick - skull found."
Missing from the spread, however, is that famous opening line to a verse in Cymbeline: "Fear no more the heat o' the Sun".
It would have been an apt comment on the paper's less hard-edged approach to the world of late.

Follow Mariel Amez's board The Sun Celebrates on Pinterest.

The Royal Shakespeare Company celebrated with fireworks

#Cakespeare

Other ways of celebrating Shakespeare's Birthday!

The V&A wants to celebrate the big day with a fabulous birthday cake. We would like you to design, make and decorate a cake inspired by the Bard. We need to you to muster all of your culinary and design skills to come up with a fairy cake fit for Titania, or a sinfully decadent cream cake that would make Falstaff swoon. Upload your entries to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #Cakespeare. The winner will be announced on 7 May.

Watch out for the results!

Follow Victoria and Albert Museum's board #Cakespeare on Pinterest.

Hamlet on screen

There are probably countless film versions of Hamlet, ranging from the one starring Sir Laurence Olivier (1948)





to the one with Kenneth Brannagh (1996) 






 Next Saturday 26th Film and Arts is airing a version featuring Ethan Hawke (2000)

 

 It has met with highly mixed  reviews

 It can be a good idea to compare these five different renderings of the (perhaps) most famous soliloquy in drama. There are some questions to help you in the video itself. You can also compare the video from Hamlet la Metamorfosis available in the previous post

Hamlet

In order to celebrate Shakespeare's 450th birthday we are going to start the year reading Hamlet.

Try to get  an edition that is rich in explanatory notes (eg Longman Shakespeare, Cambridge School Shakespeare or many others)

As you read, you will make comments in the Goodreads group. Click on the link on the right-hand side menu to join (you will need an account, which is free).

If you have trouble finding a copy, you can start with Open Source Shakespeare .

"Hamlet la Metamorfosis" from Shakespeare Argentina on Vimeo.

Shakespeare's birthday

2014 marks the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. But if we are only as old as we feel, can we say that Shakespeare is old?

You will find below a list of resources. They include audio, video, images and text. Take your time to explore them.

Then, in groups of 2 or 3, design a digital poster in which you bring together some items that you find particularly meaningful, on the theme "Is Shakespeare our contemporary?". Prepare a short speech (five minutes) in which you account for your choices and final design.
(Some options for a digital poster are Glogster, Tackk and Mural.ly. See some tutorials in Spanish. But of course you can choose another tool.)


Open Source Shakespeare attempts to be the best free Web site containing Shakespeare's complete works. It is intended for scholars, thespians, and Shakespeare lovers of every kind. OSS includes the 1864 Globe Edition of the complete works, which was the definitive single-volume Shakespeare edition for over a half-century.

Approaching Shakespeare  (Podcasts) Each lecture in this series focuses on a single play by Shakespeare, and employs a range of different approaches to try to understand a central critical question about it.

Royal Shakespeare Company resources

Shakespeare in 100 Objects

Shakespeare and Music

Shakespeare’s Villains

Words Shakespeare Invented

Shakespeare: A Worldwide Classroom

Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive a collaborative project providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays and metadata by scholars and educators in the field.
Shakespeare in American Life Includes lesson plans, podcasts, videos and articles.

Earlier this year the British Council Germany held  a seminar entitled "Shakespeare - Our Contemporary?". See a brief summary below. If you are interested, you can watch all - or some of - the lectures