'Tis Most Relevant To Mine Interests ; Or Please Continue Casting Tom Hiddleston In ALL The Shakespeare Things

Any English lecturer worth their salt will probably tell you a dozen times over that Shakespeare is not meant to be read. Certainly not in the way you would sit down to read works by other dead white English man-writers like Dickens.  Shakespeare's works are essentially scripts, meant to be performed, intended to be a visual spectacle. But it's easy to forget that when you're sitting in an 8am Renaissance Drama class, staring at line upon line of soliloquies, being told to find narrative parallels and figure out which characters are meant to be foils to which other characters. Which is why the recent BBC TV adaptations of four of Shakespeare's historical plays (Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, and Henry V, otherwise all known as the Henriad) came at such an opportune time in my life.

Production wise, each instalment is stellar. The sets are great, the costumes are appropriately gorgeous  (or grimy and tattered and utterly disgusting, depending on the social standing of the characters) and the acting is out of this world, as should be expected when you have the likes of Jeremy Irons, Ben Whishaw and ultimate Shakespeare fanboy TOM HIDDLESTON in your cast.


But I'm not here to discuss all that, because what really enchanted me to pieces about this series of adaptations is how it wonderfully illustrates the real difference between watching Shakespeare versus reading Shakespeare, made all the more remarkable by the fact that the speeches and dialogue are hardly altered at all in the transition from original text to screen (I know, I totally checked).

You become so accustomed to the modern context of Shakespeare as highbrow academic material,  serious and stodgy, that you forget these plays were originally written to entertain the masses. Shakespeare was Elizabethan pop culture, meant to be as widely accessible as possible at a time when other fancy pants playwrights were too busy incorporating entire portions of Latin (which would only make sense to scholars and the educated upper classes) in their own stage productions. Shakespeare was no elitist. Hell, the dude never even went to university (these days of course, it seems like his works mostly interest bearded, pipe-smoking, tweed-jacket wearing academics with Classics degrees). Also, Shakespeare and his actor bros once stole an entire building and arranged for it to be rebuilt on the other side of the Thames. I kind of want to hang out with the guy now.

Watching a properly done Shakespearean adaptation is to truly witness the warmth and wit and passion and humanity (and the often delightfully bawdy and crass humour - by which I mean FART JOKES) that was completely lost on me when all I did was sit and stare at pages and pages of characters talking to each other, barely making time to really register what was going on beneath the surface. Having actors really bring these scenes to life, with tone and expressions and movement and nuance, was a flaming revelation. It was a very gradual but powerful lightbulb moment of HOLY SHIT I THINK I GET THIS. Even my brother, after nearly two solid  hours worth of Henry V, turned to me and solemnly intoned "I think I see what the big deal is about this guy now".

Not to mention, Tom Hiddleston looks positively fetching in his (historically inaccurate?) cut red leather jacket.



Get thee into mine pants, good sir.

edit : Also also also GUESS WHAT? The entirety of The Hollow Crown is up on youtube for your viewing pleasure!

Richard II
Henry IV Part 1
Henry IV Part 2
Henry V

Go get your Shakespeare on, friends.

"I Want The Whole Damn World, To Come Dance With Me"

Three Four things that made me happy this week.


Cheese-stuffed naan.
I think cheese-stuffed naan has officially crowned itself as my Ultimate Comfort Food for cold rainy days, when you've spent 11 hours on campus (plus the one hour on the stupid bus, navigating the stupid evening traffic in stupid Kuala Lumpur) and you're just beyond tired and your mind is half-blank and you're functioning on autopilot until you can get to your room to shower and then sink into bed with your laptop on your tummy. For those kind of days. Cheese naan is just so soft and warm and fluffy and savoury, and it feeds your soul while also filling your belly. Dunk it in hot dhal and mint chutney, wash it all down with iced coffee. HEAVEN. And it only costs you RM 4.50. I really love the world and the things in it, sometimes.


This song.



I'm not the biggest fan of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, but I have been playing this song on a loop  all week. It's almost - but only almost - the sonic equivalent of cheese naan. It makes me want to run down the street and hug strangers. The accompanying music video is also quite a treat (my favourite bit is the ballet troupe right at the end).


The Hobbit is on my required reading list for the semester.



OH YEAH.
This will make going to the cinema in December to watch The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey all the more awesome.
And as if that wasn't cool enough, my Children's Literature class will also be tackling Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone. You totally wish you were me right now, oh yes you do.


Tom Hiddleston. 
I thoroughly enjoyed The Avengers, and left the cinema with a suitably unhealthy level of affection for the entire cast, but Tom Hiddleston (who played the wonderfully slimy, petty, tragic, conflicted and whiny Loki) did not ping on my radar until earlier this week. A happy accident of Internetting revealed to me that the man graduated from Cambridge with a degree in Classics, speaks roughly six or seven languages, recites poetry in the most loin-meltingly luscious voice ever, runs the dorkiest Twitter feed I've ever seen, is pretty darned good at impressions (his Owen Wilson and velociraptor imitations are particularly noteworthy). He is not conventionally good-looking by any stretch of the imagination, but he pretty much seems like the sweetest, kindest, most generous, gracious and humble actor and human being in existence, and he deserves ALL the love, ALL the movie scripts, and ALL the awards. I'll just be sitting here, watching him with my chin in my hands and stars in my eyes.
And then there is his laugh.



Hiddleston, it took me a while to get here. But you and me? This love will last forever. I can totally tell.

Can I just add that he also has the most spectacular taste in music? His daily Twitter song recommendations are the stuff dreams are made of.

And why yes, I do totally judge people based on their music taste. Isn't that how it works?