As I noted yesterday, there are three 'Shakespeare houses' - his birthplace, new place/Nash's house and Hall's Croft. First up was his birthplace, which has a museum attached to it that's got some interesting stuff in it. Oh, the swan statue isn't at the house; it's on the bank of the river.
This poster is by Gerald Scarfe, whose work you might be familiar with; he was the animator/album art designer for Pink Floyd's The Wall, did the opening credits for Yes Minister and was the production designer for Disney's animated Hercules - which, incidentally, I watched on the plane coming here.
This is the original town cross from Stratford-upon-Avon. Will's father would have done business on/around it - he was a glove-maker.
Then it was on to the actual house, which they've set up to look as much like it would have looked in Shakespeare's time, apart from the floor, which is stone and not dirt. And, presumably, the smell. I only took a couple of shots, just to give you an idea.
Next was New Place//Nash's House. It's more museum-like, and has a huge garden - where the 'new place' was before it was torn down. There are some interesting statues/sculptures as well.
Lastly, Hall's Croft. This had a lot of stuff that was more about Stratford, particularly regarding the locals where were involved in WWI. It also had a garden, with a mulberry tree that needed some assistance. And, for no reason I can now remember, a bed.
It was certainly interesting to see all of this, as well as to think about what it means - the place Shakespeare inhabits in the public consciousness. There was, for a time, a huge market for Shakespeare relics - and just like religious relics, many of these were fakes made by opportunistic fraudsters. Then again, I myself had travelled halfway across the world at least in part to come here and see where he lived and the town he was born and grew up in.
Also interesting was that there are the 'lost years' - the period between when he left Stratford and showed up in London as part of the theatre scene. No-one has yet found anything to verify what it is he did for that period - about seven years. There are a few theories - our tour mentioned one where he fled the region and joined a troupe of travelling actors; that actually sounds pretty reasonable - but there's nothing to confirm or deny any of them.
The last interesting thing about Shakespeare? His neighbour had the surname 'Badger'. Now that is awesome.
Okay, done with the Bard for now; time to go see another castle - this time, Warwick castle, which was about a twenty-minute drive from Stratford. I jumped in the car and headed north-east to find it. I'd been warned that it was a bit on the cheesy side (it's owned by the same people who run Madame Tussaud's - somewhere I'd not felt even the slightest inclination to visit while I was in London), and was definitely a tourist trap, but it still had a certain amount of history going for it - it was another built by William the Conqueror in the mid 11th century - so I thought it worth braving what would surely be hordes of tourists in order to see the interesting bits.
Since the first thing I saw driving to the car park was a man with a huge eagle on his arm standing next to the road. I suspected I'd made the right decision. After I got there, parked, walked to the castle and paid the somewhat obnoxious entry and parking fees I was starting to wonder again, but I soon saw a sign indicating I'd timed it just right to see the eagle I'd passed earlier in action.
Some pictures:
There was a bald eagle, two different kinds of vulture, and two Steller's sea eagle - that was the huge one I'd seen earlier. And it was awesome.
Later I saw some jousting and some sword-fighting, but I wasn't especially interested in that - it was all a bit silly - so I wandered around the castle itself and looked at the interesting things they had around there. The armoury is very impressive, almost as good as the Tower of London's. And they've quite a few paintings, though many of them are copies.
I'd be so tempted to put something like 'Weddings, parties, anything' underneath Hawk Experience on the van. And I'm sure people would probably hire you to bring your enormous birds of prey and carrion eaters along to help celebrate their special day.
Then it was back to Stratford. But I had one other place I wanted to go before I went to find food; happily, it was between my B&B and town
Not because I'm especially interested in butterflies. I am, however interested in what else they have there. Very interested.
Er, no. That's a poison dart frog. Though that is pretty cool. I'm talking about this:
That's a tarantula. A Brazilian Fire Red tarantula to be precise. And it is awesome.
I also got very excited when I saw this, which I didn't know they had:
I am rather fond of chameleons. I think I've seen one before, but I can't say for sure - and I don't think it was one as big as this one. They also had a Tokay gecko, which is a massive and brightly coloured gecko lizard (oddly enough), but it wasn't in a good position to photograph.
Okay, then it was time for dinner. One of the apparently traditional pub foods here is something called Hunter's Chicken, so I thought I might as well try that - with a local ale, of course. The chicken turned to be, essentially, a bbq chicken pizza - minus the pizza. But it tasted okay.
Then it was a short walk to the RSC theatre - though I did go past an ice-cream place where I got to experience more of my bad run of luck re: availability; they were out of what I wanted, which was soft-serve.
Now, let's remember that this is the RSC, one of the most highly-regarded theatre companies in the world; it was at their recently redeveloped (at a cost of many millions of pounds) theatre; and it featured Sir Antony Sher, one of the greats of English theatre (Shakespeare in particular), as Falstaff.
So, yeah - by far the best Shakespeare production I've ever seen. Hands down. Utterly, utterly brilliant. I went home a very happy man.
No comments:
Post a Comment