Shakespeare final:Mind doc rev
3/7/08
16:24
Page 8
SHAKESPEARE ON TOAST
and Parliament in November 1605. Shortly after Fawkes’ botched effort, Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, partly, some think, in response to the civil unrest of the time. Macbeth is also the play in which he coined the word assassination. Now, in the early 21st century, Shakespeare really is everywhere. Elvis quotes him in his No. 1 hit ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ His plays are performed everywhere in countless languages. There have been productions using actors from all over the planet in the virtual computer world, Second Life. At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2007 (which runs for only 22 days) there were over 30 productions, either of his plays or that used his plays as a starting point. And he’s not just in theatres, of course. Although the first film of a Shakespeare play (King Lear) was made way back in 1899, it’s probably Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie Romeo + Juliet that has done more in recent times than anything else to make Shakespeare more of a household name. With 707 films to his name in June 2008, this writer from a small Warwickshire town four centuries ago is far and away the most prolific writer of movies: in 2005 alone, there were sixteen films made of his plays (never mind the thousands of fridge magnets, mugs and soft toys of his likeness). •
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