Bottom the Weaver's Guest Appearance in Royal Pains

“Bottom’s Up.” By Carol Flint & Simran Baidwan. Perf. Jake Weber, Mark Feuerstein, Paulo Costanzo, Jill Flint, Reshma Shetty, Brooke D'Orsay, and Campbell Scott. Dir. Tricia Brock. Royal Pains. Season 3, episode 14. USA Network.  8 February 2012.  DVD.  Paramount, 2008.

---

Certainly, the Pyramus and Thisbe scene in A Midsummer Night's Dream is meant to be terrible. But is it meant to be this terrible?

To be fair, the actor playing the actor playing Bottom (the repetition is necessary and intentional there) plays Bottom's role with great gusto. But everything else that frames that performance is just Soap Opera Awful (SOA). Take a gander and you'll understand:

---

Links: The Show's Episode List at IMDB.

Click below to purchase 
the Season Three, Part Two DVD 
from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Hamlet in Monty Python’s Flying Circus

“Hamlet.” By Monty Python et al. Perf. Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Connie Booth, and Eric Idle. Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Season 4, episode 4. BBC. 21 November 1974. DVD. New Video, 1999.

---

I've commented before on the notion that the British Comedy Troupe Monty Python has a relative scarcity of Shakespeare-related material. Of course, there is the Underwater Measure for Measure sketch—and the sketch that includes something of Shakespeare's biography—and, naturally, the optional Shakespearean subtitles to Monty Python and the Holy Grail (more can be found here)—and the one about the Overactors Hospital—and, finally, Julius Caesar on an Aldis Lamp. But there's not much beyond that.

When I wrote on those points of convergence between the comedy troupe and Shakespeare, I knew about the episode entitled “Hamlet”—but I didn't like it very much. It descends into crudity and obscenity far too often and far too quickly.

Still, I felt Bardfilm was letting its public down by not noting the episode. In the clip below, I've expurgated the naughty bits, leaving in three key points: Hamlet on the psychiatrist's couch, two ladies suddenly and inexplicably quoting from Hamlet, and the end of the episode, with its Shakespeare-related credits. Enjoy, Bardfilm's public!

---

Links: The Episode at IMDB.

Click below to purchase 
all the Monty Python’s Flying Circus there ever was 
from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Shakespearean Advertisements

The Bard on Madison Avenue. A Few Selected Advertisements. Various Years. Various Sources. Various Products.

---

Bardfilm has addressed Shakespeare in advertising just a few times: Contrasting powerful and weak ads, pondering how the power of the St. Crispin's Day speech was harnessed to sell a computer gaming console, and imagining a Pepsodent ad connected to the Guthrie Theatre's production of Two Gentlemen of Verona.

But there's more!  Much more!

A student in my Modern Shakespearean Fiction class presented us with a few cell phone ads that use Romeo and Juliet to sell their products. One of those is listed below; I happened to track down a commercial for diapers and a commercial for a dating service that do the same.

What do you think of these uses of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? Please add your voice to the comments below!

---

More Snogging than Shakespeare: A Midsummer Tights Dream

Rennison, Louise. A Midsummer Tights Dream. New York: HarperTeen, 2012.

---

In the name of awareness more than anything else, I'm mentioning this book for older young adults with a mere modicum of Shakespeare.

Louise Rennison has written a ton of books—and, once again, I'm not in the target audience for any of them.

This one has to do with an girl who is becoming a woman, Irish Dance, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the art of snogging.

But it's mostly about snogging: when, how, why, with whom, and how often.

As I made my way through the book, I kept hoping that those themes, which are present in Shakespeare's play, would be caught up by our narrator—but they are only sporadically present.

This book continues the story begun by the author's 2010 novel Withering Tights.

---

Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Avi's Take on Romeo and Juliet

Avi. Romeo and Juliet: Together (And Alive!) at Last. New York: Scholastic Paperbacks, 2012.

---

Avi has written children's books in just about every category that exists. This is his take on a Shakespeare play.

The plot of this very basic chapter book is a mirror plot. In order to get two shy students who like each other to talk to each other, a third student decides to stage a production of Romeo and Juliet.

Hijinks ensue.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The characters are fairly interesting and vivacious, and the book has something of a Shakespeare idea motivating it. But it's also flawed. It's set among eighth graders, but the reading level is nearer the second grade level; that involves a discrepancy between the characters' and their experiences and the lack of a mature language to express or describe it.

The use of Shakespeare is puzzling. Let me give you an example or two.

From page 93.

From page 113.

I get that—I understand where the humor of that comes from.  Saying "Parting is such sweet and sour that tomorrow I shall say good night till it be sorry" is pretty funny.  And so are "Lemon table day" and "I lack a day"—but I don't know that second-grade readers will find those terribly amusing unless they know where the words have gone wrong. And the book doesn't help along those lines. If it provided the correct versions of the Shakespeare quotes at some earlier point, it would work fairly well; as it is, it falls fairly flat.

---

Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).