Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
There. Perfect rainbow over the Thames.
Looking downstream from Waterloo Bridge. There's St Paul's in the middle and the rainbow is
coming down round about where The Globe was. What's now behind The Financial Times Building
and just out of sight round the corner there is now the replica Globe that opened in 1997.
I'm in London today for a planning meeting for the World Shakespeare Congress that's
happening in 2016. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. More on
that later.
But really today, I want to talk about two things. One of which is that building there.
The little concrete one with the letters running past it on the front, which is of course the
National Theatre. A place with a very special place in its repertory for Hamlet.
Let's just remind ourselves where we are first. If I pan back up into the sun, there are the
Houses of Parliament, incorporating Westminster Hall, a building that features in some of
Shakespeare's History Plays. You can just see the towers of Westminster Abbey. And just
to the right of Westminster Abbey, with all the flagpoles on the top, is the Ministry
of Defence Building. Underneath which are the foundations of the Great Hall of the former
Whitehall Palace. Which was a court theatre venue in Shakespeare's time. We know that
King James saw King Lear there in 1606.
But, yes, it's prettier downriver that way, with the light on it.
Two things I wanted to mention today. One of them is the National, the other one is
pirates.
The National Theatre is an institution like other national theatres around the world has
been very much preoccupied with Hamlet. When we finally got a National Theatre company
in this country in 1964, the first production, when they were still based at the Old Vic,
was Hamlet, directed by Laurence Oliver and starring Peter O'Toole.
In 1976, when this concrete building opened, the first production in the Olivier Auditorium
was Hamlet, directed by Sir Peter Hall and starrring Albert Finney.
It's a play that's become shorthand for the entire western theatrical tradition. So, if
you're going to set up an important theatre, you have to do it sooner or later, and preferably
sooner.
Especially since the whole project to have a national theatre in this country has been
so interwoven with the idea of commemorating Shakespeare.
Now, the other thing I wanted to say quickly is pirates. A few of you on the comments pages
have been picking up inconsistencies in Hamlet, or shortcuts in the script, have mentioned
how corny it seems to be that Hamlet sets off from Denmark, looking like he's doomed
and then manages to hitch a ride back with some convenient pirates. Shakespeare of course
is not above using pirates as shortcuts in other plays too, there's that conveniently
dead pirate Ragozine in Measure for Measure. There's some pirates who turn up and accidentally
rescue the heroine Marina in Pericles.
But I think we have to remember that pirates are more corny for us than they were for the
Elizabethans. The Elizabethans haven't read Treasure Island. They haven't seen Pirates
of the Caribbean. What they knew about was actual pirates. The Thames looks fairly quiet
nowadays, but in Shakespeare's time this was a very busy port and you'd barely see the
water for the traffic.
And just up the Thames Estuary, there would then be pirates lying in wait, trying to pick
up some of the cargo that was travelling between the mouth of the Thames and the mouth of the
Rhine. In fact, one of Shakespeare's colleagues, a playwright called Lording Barry, who wrote
one very funny comedy called Ram Alley actually spent quite a lot of his career when he wasn't
writing his play, working as a pirate.
So, pirates were just a fact of life, rather than a corny literary convention.
A last plug for 2016. It's now 2014, Shakespeare's 450th birthday and I'll be celebrating in
Stratford on April 26. There will be huge parades. You should come if you're anywhere
within range. I'm going to be giving a lifetime achievement award to Sir Nicholas Hytner,
the former Director of the National, who directed Rory Kinnear's Hamlet a couple of years ago.
In 2016, it's the World Shakespeare Congress, which is the equivalent of the Shakespeare
Olympics. It's being hosted jointly by Stratford and London. Particularly in the Shakespeare
Institute, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Shakespeare's
Globe down here and Kings College London.
So, if you can't make it over this year, make sure you come in 2016.
Meanwhile I leave you with a view of the river. Stay tuned for next week when we get Pippa
Nixon doing 'To be or not to be', which will be lovely. Thanks very much.