Shakespeare Magazine 9

Bill
Multi-talented cast members
Simon Farnaby, Jim Howick
and Martha Howe-Douglas
Anne Shakespeare
(Martha Howe-
herself on a certain
iconic London stage.
Simon: “No, not at all, because I think he
would have approved. Shakespeare himself
wrote historical plays and I’m sure not
everything he said about, for example, King
Richard III was true. He took dramatic licence
and never let facts get in the way of a good
story. We’ve kind of done the same with
Shakespeare’s story… We fill in the gaps in a
very creative and interesting way.”
Martha: “Collecting bodies.”
Jim: “Probably a minstrel of some kind or a
jester. I’d be some sort of servant man, maybe
a messenger.”
Simon: “I’d be a – probably a prostitute.
I mean, it’s an easy way to make some money,
you’d get to hang around the court a bit…”
Martha: “I think you could be an
innkeeper.”
Simon: “Yeah!”
to Bill
Jim: “Hamlet the Dane, I think. To give a sort
of Horrible Histories interpretation of Hamlet
would be quite fun.”
Martha: “I like The Taming of the Shrew, so I
wouldn’t mind giving that a bash.”
Simon: “I’d like to do a comedic Richard III.”
Jim: “Hasn’t that already been done?”
Simon: “Has it? Who’s done it?”
Jim: “I did it.”
Simon: “You!”
Jim: “But not a Shakespearean one.”
Simon: “Yeah I’d actually do it, ‘Now is the
winter of our discontent…’”
Martha: “Well, now everybody’s heard that
you never know, do you?”
Simon: “Yeah, it might be snapped up.”
34 SHAKESPEARE magazine