We read novels. We are made to read poetry. We hardly ever read plays. And it is something of an acquired art to read plays. Every time I have ventured into reading plays I have had to adjust my eye, and sensibility: it takes some time. And plays are a great art form. Theatre. Drama. Comedy. Tragedy. The great tradition from Aeschylus, via Sophocles and Euripides, through the Romans like Terence and Seneca and through Mystery plays to the revived drama of, eminently, Shakespeare, Marlow and Jonson and Calderon and Lope de Vega, and then everyone: Corneille, Racine, Dryden, Sheridan, even Tennyson, and then Ibsen, Shaw, Yeats, Eliot, Brecht and so on: with a last burst of enthusiasm in the 1950s, with Osborne, Arden, Bond, running through to the 1970s with Hare, Brenton et al.: who more or less murdered the drama in agitprop, though it was also eaten away by film and television.
A century ago the consensus was that the two greatest playwrights in English were Shakespeare (1550-1604) and Shaw (1856-1950). We would dispute this now: Shaw’s flame is down. I think it will revive. Disagree? Try You Never Can Tell or The Man of Destiny or The Doctor’s Dilemma or Getting Married or, hell’s bells, even Shakes Versus Shav, a very late play in which Shaw put himself and Shakespeare on the stage at the same time to knock each other about. Shaw put himself in the same category as Shakespeare: not only admiring him,
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I think he is disliked/disapproved of principally because he appeals to the white working class – the group everyone else loves to hate.
I don’t know about the “court” but his success came because he was able to appeal directly to the voters – because the US Presidential system allows that, and he was rich enough to initially fund it. Parts of the Republican establishment did not want him – he muscled his way in because he appealed to voters.
Not just white working class, blacks and Hispanics also.
He is different because he is doing what the people told him they want – for good or bad – not doing what he thinks the people should want and will get anyway. He listened, he didn’t lecture.
More important he said what he would do, and is actually doing what he promised to do. Quite a novelty in politics.
This is counter to the status-quo where the clever folk believe the people can’t make the “correct” decisions, are not competent to do so (Brexit) and therefore they, the clever people, must insulate Government from the people in order to ensure the “correct” decisions are taken. This they call democracy – where the people actually get a say is called “populism” and is a threat to democracy.
I don’t think we need Shakespeare to figure that out.
100%
I think they hate him because he is not of the ‘political class’ but a no-nonsense businessman who has decided shoving marbles up the rectums of cats is not something taxpayers should pay for – and yes, it was a new one on me too.
My favourite read is the Screwfix catalogue.
Uptick for annoying someone po-faced.
It has moved up since Argos removed the ‘laminated book of dreams’.
Interesting take.
Maybe I didn’t listen to Starkey enough before he was cancelled, I’ve been trying to make up for it. His recent interviews with Steve Edginton are great fun.
‘Shakespeare (1550-1604)’
Er,…I’m old enough to recall the BBC’s celebratory season on the putative 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth – he remains a semi-mythological figure – in 1964. And he lived to be 52. Whoever wrote the dates above needs to revisit them.
Born in 1564.
Died in 1616.