MAGIC OF SHAKESPEARE

James Reynard and Claire Tucker

Leafing through the paper the other day I found an interesting graph showing how the country's economic growth has risen and fallen over the last few years.  It bears no relation whatsoever to what has happened in our business apart from the fact that the general trend in both cases is in a southerly direction.  This month in particular has been slow, the sort of 'feathers through treacle' slowness that makes you think seriously of staying under the duvet with the coverlet pulled firmly about your ears. Orders have slowed to a trickle and you wonder whether you are still going to be here a year from now. Then on Friday the cheering news of a large order from the Library Service of one of the bigger London Boroughs.

From a brief perusal of recent newspaper headlines you might be forgiven for thinking that there weren't any libraries left, certainly in places like London, or if there were some left then certainly that they wouldn't have any money; and if by some fluke they did have some money then it would be reserved for some core project rather than additional supplies of labels.  But of course you would be wrong and this order was proof.  Along with a couple of other orders that emerged like beetles from the woodwork, the month ended on a somewhat happier note.

Now, you might be enquiring which London Borough this might be in case they happened to be in the market for your goods and services too.  Well, I am not at liberty to say but I shall give you a clue (which of course might be wrong for boundaries change over time) but I think it was the same borough that once housed Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  If this seems a recondite sort of a clue, then I admit it is, but along with the febrile state of the British economy Shakespeare has been much on my mind this week.

You see it was our little theatre group's AGM on Friday and I had invited a couple of actors (James and Claire - see above) to try out an adult version of a show they have developed to introduce Shakespeare to children, called The Magic of Shakespeare. As they had to travel all the way from Gloucester, and were partly doing us a favour,  a suitably sized audience to show our appreciation was indeed required.  But for a variety of reasons - some possibly economic - I was beginning to worry that we should not have one.

Friends that usually come along to our shows wrung their hands and said that they couldn't come along to this one.  Excuse followed on excuse and apology on apology.  I wasn't even sure we'd have more than the apocryphal two men and a dog turning up to the AGM.  Even our esteemed Chairman found that he had to attend a wedding in Inverness.  The Secretary and Patron Secretary also sent apologies.  Regulars regretted that this or that had intervened. I was biting my nails.

But in the event something turned up and it was a respectable audience.  My fears went thankfully unrealised,  as fears so often do. The show proceeded and most excellent it was too.  And educational to boot.   I learned, for instance - because this was an 'introduction' to Shakespeare's work - that the Globe Theatre had no lighting.  That sounds obvious - of course the Elizabethans had no stage lights, they had no electricity; the best they could do would have been the occasional candle, or perhaps a couple of burning brands.   So plays took place mostly in broad daylight.

Yet many of Shakespeare's best known scenes take place 'in the foul womb of night' and if you read those lines closely you will learn that Shakespeare tells you (and then tells you again in case you might have been asleep) that a scene is occurring in darkness.  Take, for instance, the famous balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, the word 'night' occurs fourteen times - just in case, in the sunshine of the Globe Theatre,  you might be tempted to think it was day. 

So the AGM and the show passed felicitously and afterwards we had some champagne because the two actors, James and Claire, who wrote and presented the Magic of Shakespeare,  recently became engaged and are to be married in April, perhaps even on Shakespeare's birthday, and it just so happened that it was also the 53rd wedding anniversary of Rosie and Jim.  So we all had a little theatre supper and a few bubbles to celebrate, and a happy time was had by all.