my part on this globe
It's been the most glorious few days in London. Wonderful autumn sunshine coaxing Londoners to take a Sunday afternoon stroll in Richmond park and marvel at the falling leaves while blissfully disregarding the inevitability that this means we will soon be left with bare trees beneath cloudy, grey skies.
In my first week post-employment I have enjoyed a few 'London' outings myself, most significantly a trip to Shakespeare's Globe. I'm aware it is sacrilege for an English student to admit what I am about to commit to print. I've actually never been much of a Shakespeare fan. In fact, most of the time I have to do a spellcheck to ensure I've written his name correctly. Quite honestly, I just wish that he had, at least some of the time, said what he actually meant. Nevertheless, having an entire subject in my degree imposed upon me, devoted purely to the one widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist¹ I have started to warm to the guy's evasive ways and was actually quite excited to visit the Globe.
Once inside the pit, along with the other 'commoners', I began to imagine what it must have been like back in the days of the original Globe. As I laughed along with fellow audience members and my legs ached from standing for three hours I felt like I was participating in a timeless, very English, tradition.
As I strolled back over Southwark Bridge and glanced sideways toward Tower Bridge I marvelled at the dense history that this city offers and how, in a drop-in-the-ocean sort of way, I am somehow a part of that. A wise man once put it so eloquently: 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.²' Now who was it again who said that...?
1 Is there anything that Wikipedia can't tell us?
2 Oh yes....Shakespeare wrote that in As You Like It
In my first week post-employment I have enjoyed a few 'London' outings myself, most significantly a trip to Shakespeare's Globe. I'm aware it is sacrilege for an English student to admit what I am about to commit to print. I've actually never been much of a Shakespeare fan. In fact, most of the time I have to do a spellcheck to ensure I've written his name correctly. Quite honestly, I just wish that he had, at least some of the time, said what he actually meant. Nevertheless, having an entire subject in my degree imposed upon me, devoted purely to the one widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist¹ I have started to warm to the guy's evasive ways and was actually quite excited to visit the Globe.
Once inside the pit, along with the other 'commoners', I began to imagine what it must have been like back in the days of the original Globe. As I laughed along with fellow audience members and my legs ached from standing for three hours I felt like I was participating in a timeless, very English, tradition.
As I strolled back over Southwark Bridge and glanced sideways toward Tower Bridge I marvelled at the dense history that this city offers and how, in a drop-in-the-ocean sort of way, I am somehow a part of that. A wise man once put it so eloquently: 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.²' Now who was it again who said that...?
1 Is there anything that Wikipedia can't tell us?
2 Oh yes....Shakespeare wrote that in As You Like It
Labels: london life, theatre
posted by foxy_roxtar at 5:47 AM
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