Shakespeare Magazine 11
The shiny new-look Shakespeare Magazine 11 is adorned with a stunning cover image of Lily James and Richard Madden in Kenneth Branagh’s Romeo and Juliet. Also in Issue 11, SK Moore tells us about his compelling new graphic novel of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, while broadcaster Samira Ahmed turns her magnificently mercurial mind to the subject of Shakespeare. We have words with Pub Landlord comedian Al Murray about his recent brush with the Bard (and Judi Dench) at RSC Shakespeare Live. And our Editor raves about a 3-DVD box set of 1960s TV Shakespeare classic The Wars of the Roses. We chat with the great Don Warrington, star of Talawa Theatre’s earth-shaking King Lear at Manchester’s Royal Exchange – youthful co-star Alfred Enoch joins in too. Also this issue: we imagine what Tom Hiddleston’s Hamlet would look like, we explore the life of Elizabeth Siddal, Victorian Ophelia, and Bristol’s Insane Root scare the living daylights out of us with their Macbeth!
The shiny new-look Shakespeare Magazine 11 is adorned with a stunning cover image of Lily James and Richard Madden in Kenneth Branagh’s Romeo and Juliet. Also in Issue 11, SK Moore tells us about his compelling new graphic novel of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, while broadcaster Samira Ahmed turns her magnificently mercurial mind to the subject of Shakespeare. We have words with Pub Landlord comedian Al Murray about his recent brush with the Bard (and Judi Dench) at RSC Shakespeare Live. And our Editor raves about a 3-DVD box set of 1960s TV Shakespeare classic The Wars of the Roses. We chat with the great Don Warrington, star of Talawa Theatre’s earth-shaking King Lear at Manchester’s Royal Exchange – youthful co-star Alfred Enoch joins in too. Also this issue: we imagine what Tom Hiddleston’s Hamlet would look like, we explore the life of Elizabeth Siddal, Victorian Ophelia, and Bristol’s Insane Root scare the living daylights out of us with their Macbeth!
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Al Murray<br />
And as Bottom, with those ears and whiskers and<br />
general ugliness, you believe it.”<br />
Did you have a lot of rehearsals, or was it a<br />
case of the old ‘just turn up and do it’?<br />
“I had several rehearsals earlier in the week and<br />
then the day before. I’ve played the RST (Royal<br />
<strong>Shakespeare</strong> Theatre) before, doing my own shows<br />
when it’s been dark on a Sunday, but this was all of<br />
a different order. Waiting in the wings with John<br />
Lithgow… I’ve a long way to go to top that.”<br />
It’s also quite a saucy moment for Titania and<br />
Bottom, which Dame Judi delightedly played<br />
up to. Prompting a priceless pile-up of facial<br />
expressions from Bottom...<br />
“Well, the thing is, with Dame Judi you know<br />
you’ve not got a lot to do. The basic piece of<br />
direction Greg gave me was to just listen and the<br />
rest will follow.”<br />
Your backstage selfies from <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />
Live were beautiful – Al Murray, Judi Dench<br />
and the actors playing Titania’s fairies. It was<br />
actually the most popular thing <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />
<strong>Magazine</strong> has ever tweeted – well, apart<br />
from Benedict Cumberbatch. Were you<br />
aware that <strong>Shakespeare</strong> was quite a thing on<br />
social media?<br />
“No! But the night was clearly going to be a big<br />
deal. It reminded me of the sort of thing the<br />
BBC used to do – ambitious, deliberately highbrow-meets-populist,<br />
having the confidence in<br />
<strong>Shakespeare</strong> and a lot of talent to take over a whole<br />
night of television. More please.”<br />
Apart from your own role, what were your<br />
highlights of <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Live?<br />
“Being part of a company. I am so used to doing<br />
my own stuff, and when we tour we travel in<br />
a small touring party – my tour manager, my<br />
technical guy and me. When I wait in the wings<br />
it’s just me, and it’s a long time since I got that<br />
Top: Beatrice (Meera Syal) and Benedick<br />
(Sanjeev Bhaskar) from Much Ado About Nothing.<br />
Above: <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Live’s suitably sparkling hosts<br />
David Tennant and Catherine Tate.<br />
nervous. At <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Live everyone was nervous<br />
– live TV, a huge juggernaut of a show that you<br />
didn’t want to make a mistake in or hold things<br />
up. And each part of the show was called down<br />
to backstage to be mic’ed up, and everyone was<br />
nervous. And because everyone was nervous it was<br />
shared, and a problem shared between a hundred<br />
people is a problem dissolved.”<br />
“The basic piece of direction Greg Doran gave me was<br />
to just listen to Dame Judi – and the rest will follow”<br />
32 shakespeare magazine
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