13.04.16
www.thebookseller.com Q&A WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE PLAYWRIGHT A Bard-knock life
A reclusive yet heralded playwright known only as ‘the Bard’ is so shrouded in mystery that many question the authorship of the plays that bear his name. And yet, at a Starbucks in the Warwick Wellcome Break motorway services on the M40, near Stratford-upon-Avon, W Shakespeare, penman, crosses paths with opportunist hack Roger Tagholm
Roger Tagholm: May I take this opportunity to apologise for an essay I wrote at school in which I confused Macbeth and Macduff. I’m sure if I hadn’t made that mistake, I could have shifted my grade from an E to a D. William Shakespeare: Calm thee now, thy words. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some hath—you know the rest. Worry not over remembering characters. At my age, I get them confused all the time. Thank goodness for Cliff’s Notes.
RT: You like all of those books? WS: I doth! Oft times I forget just what it is that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care and I hath to look it up. Same with those outrageous slings and arrows and the sessions of sweet silent . . . err, something something. Hopeless. Cry havoc and let slip the study guides, I say.
RT: It’s a very different world today from the one into which you were born. How do you find it? WS: So much confuses me! Pray, what is this white string that everyone has coming from their ears? Is it a harvest celebration? Prithee, why doth people talk into black tiles, but not to each other? Who is this Snapchat? Why doth he command such affection?
RT: Snapchat is a bit like a town crier—the message is there, then it’s gone. It’s “new technology”; these “tiles” people are looking at even hold the pages of books. WS: This much I know. I am no Luddite—don’t forget, I was alive long before Nat Ludd and his friends destroyed the spinning frames. And look, I hath some new technology myself. It’s somewhere here in my bag . . . Nook, Nook, wherefore art thou, Nook?
RT: Um, while you’re looking—will you be attending LBF for your Author Day? WS: O, I will. For ‘twas atop the mezzanine level of Olympia but one year ago, reading The Bookseller Daily whilst looking down at the hurly-burly being done and the battles being lost and won—between agents and publishers—that I thought of one of my finest lines: “It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing.”
RT: To finish, I wonder if you could recite a little of your famous “This England” speech from Richard II? AB: My pleasure, and I’ve even adapted it for the London Book Fair . . .
ALL THE FAIR’S A STAGE THE SHAKESPEARIENCE AT LBF ‘16 In lieu of a concentrating on one market, this
year’s LBF has made Shakespeare its focus for 2016, coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. Throughout the fair there is the Shakesperience stream, which includes competitions and campaigns on social media, and live performances at the Mini Globe performance space (Olympia Lower West, 5B140). The Shakespeare Showcase (OLW, 5B145), has space for companies to exhibit Shakespeare books and products.
Today’s Authors of the Day will be celebrating the Bard. Tracy Chevalier,
Howard Jacobson and Jeanette Winterson have all contributed to the Hogarth Press
Tales of Shakespeare series, while linguist Ben Crystal will speak on the language of Shakespeare, and rapper Akala will speak about founding Hip Hop Shakespeare.
This royal throne of content, this scepter’d style, This work of majesty, this feat of shelves, This high street Eden, Demy-paradise, This many storied fortress built by man Against boredom and the hand of free, This precious Waterstones set in the silver sea, This W H Smith, Blackwell’s and indies too, This happy breed of word-folk, This overstock of publishers, this little world, This precious network, this twittering throng, This fragile flower that feeds on literature’s loam, And thrives despite envy and onslaught From foul hooded, free-spewing tech’s wrathful claw, (though Am’zon’s jungle hath birds of beauty too). These blessed plots, these editors, these many friendships, This tome-filled earth—this Supply Chain even! This realm, this negotiation, this discount clause, This very breath of our lives, this book land.
Q&A WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
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