. . . trippingly on the tongue. And replace the artistic director.”I’ve been mentioning some obscure derivitives, some of which haven’t yet been released. I thought I’d switch gears and mention a fabulous Shakespeare-related series that's out and readily-available:
Slings and Arrows.
The three-season Canadian television show follows the actors, directors, and staff of a Shakespeare festival as they go through three seasons.
In the first season—in the first show, even—the artistic director dies (that’s him in the coffin above) and is replaced by a new director—one who previously went insane while playing Hamlet under the previous director.
Follow that?
Anyway, the ghost of the first director (or is it a hallucination of the second director's imagining?) comes back to haunt (or is it to advise?) the second director.
Trust me, it’s great. It’s a little heavier on the heavy language than one likes for general audience viewing, but it’s full of marvelous lines, including this one from the ghost:
“Death virtually eliminates the need for pretense. There’s no one to impress.”
That from one of the most pretensious ghosts you’ll ever meet!
Slings and Arrows. Dir. Peter Wellington. Perf. Martha Burns, Paul Gross, Don McKellar, Mark McKinney, Oliver Dennis, Susan Coyne, Stephen Ouimette, and Catherine Fitch. 2003-2006 (Three Seasons). DVD. Acorn Media, 2006-2007.
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