Shakespeare - staging the world
Shakespeare - staging the world
The BM exhibition was really interesting for the first quarter, then it became increasingly unfocussed. Some of the objects were very semi-detached - and it really lacked intelectual rigour.
The first section had some great items from the Rose and Globe excavations which were interesting - particularly the toothpick/ear wax scoop (not sure about the combination in one instrument!) and the Bear's skull - the owners had ground down the Bear's teeth to even up the battle between Bear and Dogs in the Bear Baiting Pits.
The image of James 1st accession procession was fascinating because it sported an early version of the Union Jack - for some reason they did not have this image in the section on the origins of Great Britain.
I felt I recognize the methodology - I do it when I have a new lecture to do and not much time to do the research. You sit down work out the themes, then think what have I got or know that can illustrate that? For example, Falstaff dresses in a stag's head when wooing. So they illustrate this with a block of Herne's Oak from Richmond Park (fair enough) then have the famous skull from the Star Carr excavation dating to 8000BC! Why?
As it happens I took a group of students up to the Europe section of the BM see this item a couple of months ago and was surprised to find it missing. So one question is - does the pleasure this irrelevant item give to Shakespeare lovers, match the loss to lovers of the Mesolithic for whom this is a world famous item? Not in my opinion.
To me the whole exhibition is full of similar tokenism - grab a quote from Shakespeare and find something vaguely relevant. This could have worked - for example, the Tudor clock was amazing - because it not only illustrated Shakespeare but told you something you did not know about Shakespeare's world. But for me the Curators made poor choices too detached from Shakespeare and not interesting enough in their own right - in the end, to me it is an insipid exhibition.
By the end of the Exhibition I had fallen out of interest. There is a section on Cleopatra, another on Julius Ceasar, then a whole bit on Venice. I understand the potential revelance in illuminating Shakespeare world but each section was so lacking in insight, and interest. Nothing wrong with the idea - just implemented in a trivial way - lacking scholarlship, rigour and most importantly interest!
I felt Cleopatra - so what? The only interesting fact here was a rather stretched comparison between Cleopatra and Elizabeth - both being women rulers in a man's world.
When you go round the exhibition you get glimpses of the Reading Room - and it reminds me what a terrible decision it was to turn this truly internationally important building into an exhibition room where the building is obscured behind temporary staging. This was a great free library and to me it is betrayal of the public funding to use this public facility for making money in block buster exhibitions.
The first section had some great items from the Rose and Globe excavations which were interesting - particularly the toothpick/ear wax scoop (not sure about the combination in one instrument!) and the Bear's skull - the owners had ground down the Bear's teeth to even up the battle between Bear and Dogs in the Bear Baiting Pits.
The image of James 1st accession procession was fascinating because it sported an early version of the Union Jack - for some reason they did not have this image in the section on the origins of Great Britain.
I felt I recognize the methodology - I do it when I have a new lecture to do and not much time to do the research. You sit down work out the themes, then think what have I got or know that can illustrate that? For example, Falstaff dresses in a stag's head when wooing. So they illustrate this with a block of Herne's Oak from Richmond Park (fair enough) then have the famous skull from the Star Carr excavation dating to 8000BC! Why?
As it happens I took a group of students up to the Europe section of the BM see this item a couple of months ago and was surprised to find it missing. So one question is - does the pleasure this irrelevant item give to Shakespeare lovers, match the loss to lovers of the Mesolithic for whom this is a world famous item? Not in my opinion.
To me the whole exhibition is full of similar tokenism - grab a quote from Shakespeare and find something vaguely relevant. This could have worked - for example, the Tudor clock was amazing - because it not only illustrated Shakespeare but told you something you did not know about Shakespeare's world. But for me the Curators made poor choices too detached from Shakespeare and not interesting enough in their own right - in the end, to me it is an insipid exhibition.
By the end of the Exhibition I had fallen out of interest. There is a section on Cleopatra, another on Julius Ceasar, then a whole bit on Venice. I understand the potential revelance in illuminating Shakespeare world but each section was so lacking in insight, and interest. Nothing wrong with the idea - just implemented in a trivial way - lacking scholarlship, rigour and most importantly interest!
I felt Cleopatra - so what? The only interesting fact here was a rather stretched comparison between Cleopatra and Elizabeth - both being women rulers in a man's world.
When you go round the exhibition you get glimpses of the Reading Room - and it reminds me what a terrible decision it was to turn this truly internationally important building into an exhibition room where the building is obscured behind temporary staging. This was a great free library and to me it is betrayal of the public funding to use this public facility for making money in block buster exhibitions.
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