The Bicks Pod

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Episode 40 - Julius Caesar Nov 03, 2020

Show notes

Power, politics, ambition, and honour. Four human facets set across the backdrop of a failing Republic. Is Julius Caesar the most topical play to talk about on November 3, 2020? Yes, but we swear we didn't plan it that way - sometimes the stars simply align.

We talked about the characters and their foibles, the historical factors that fed into the play, and Shakespeare's decision to avoid easy answers when talking about one of the most divisive figures in Ancient History. We circled round and round trying to find those answers, but wound up in mired in the midst of a play that continues to excite with its staging, its rhetoric, and the timeless lines that stride through history like so many colossi. Answers? Maybe not, but a play worth looking at in this day and age? Absolutely.

Notes:

Lindsay watched this Tony Robinson documentary about Julius Caesar and it was mentioned a few times in our discussion.
We also discussed this awesome feat of Caesar's at the battle of Alesia, which Buzzfeed took on to the joy of many (including your hosts).

Ancient Bickerings:

Our discussion this week was fitting for a play all about great men and their choices: is there an ideal leader anywhere in the play?

Episode 39 - Producing Shakespeare Oct 20, 2020

Show notes

What goes on behind the scenes to run a full-scale Shakespeare festival? How are the plays selected? How long does it take? How much does it cost? This episode we found out the answers to all these questions with the delightful help of Freewill Shakespeare Festival, the Bicks' very own local Shakespeare show that's been running for just over 30 years!

We were so very lucky to be joined this episode by Nikola Tonn, managing director of the festival, and David Horak, the artistic director for Freewill Shakespeare. We grilled them on the numerous steps involved in bringing a production to life, from play selection all the way through to opening night and the tallying of the receipts. We also cover a bit of the COVID blues because they're awfully hard to escape these days.

Notes:

Check out the Freewill Shakespeare website and maybe consider making a trip to Edmonton to take it in next year if you're at all capable! Macbeth and Much Ado are two of our faves!
If you've never been, check out these lovely photos provided to us by the team, showing off the truly stellar grounds that are simply perfect for outdoor theatre!

Episode 38 - Henry V Oct 06, 2020

Show notes

Henry V is one of Shakespeare's grandest and most legendary plays, partly because it depicts the stunning historical victories of one of England's greatest kings, but also because Shakespeare skillfully weaves so many universal themes into the events of this play. From masculinity and warfare and what makes a great king to death and the loyalty of friends, Shakespeare takes what is essentially nothing more than a grand war-filled saga and imbues it with depth and meaning that the siege of Harfleur or the Battle of Agincourt don't hold on their own. The end result is a complex story that glorifies war at the same time that it calls it into question, in that way that it seems only great literature can do.

** Mea culpa: It's not Emma Thompson but Kristen Scott Thomas in the episode of Fleabag referenced by Lindsay in this episode. Blame the cold medicine, and watch that scene here: Kristin Scott Thomas’s epic speech on Fleabag

Notes:

- Greek Chorus
- Henry V history: Here are a few of the videos we watched and found interesting as we did our research and which we wanted to share with you:

NETFLIX's "The King" vs The True Story of King Henry V via Flick Connection
Discovery Knowledge: Henry V arrowhead removal
Brows Held High: Shakespeare, Film and Kenneth Branagh

- Encyclopedia Britannica entry about Salic Law
- "Simply Symbolic: First Words of Katherine of Valois"

Episode 37 - Selling Shakespeare Sep 22, 2020

Show notes

Why is it so easy to buy trinkets and knick-knacks with the face of an English poet who's been dead for 400 years? More importantly, why are we so willing to buy them? Those questions are the crux of what we're getting to in this week's podcast: the Shakespeare economy.

We take a dive through the fundamental questions around selling art in the modern capitalist world: How do value art? Who benefits from selling it? From buying it? We also discuss the particularities of those questions around the long-dead Shakespeare.

Naturally we bring up Marvel & Disney, art vs. entertainment, and all sorts of other things as we wheel into this particular wheelhouse. Join us for a long but compelling conversation all about selling Shakespeare.

Ancient Bickerings:

Instead of a debate, this time we searched for three categories of items: the tackiest souvenir, the most expensive Shakespeare item, and the coolest ones.

Lindsay selected these particular items:

Tackiest: Shakespeare Rubber Ducky OR Shakespeare Soap
Most Expensive: A second folio edition
Coolest: Any authentic pieces of the mulberry tree cut down in Shakespeare's backyard (couldn't actually find any)

Aidan went with:

Tackiest: Shakespeare Punching Puppet OR Shakespeare Microbes
Most Expensive: A 1709 Shakespeare Collected Works
Coolest: Any of the tacky but otherwise cool masks for our day and time, such as those available on Etsy

Notes:

The (very accurate) defense of Shakespeare in Love Lindsay mentions
Aidan collected a great deal of material for this episode from Shakespeare's Cultural Capital, available as a PDF from Palgrave Macmillan
You can read about the Globe and its reconstruction on both the Globe website itself, as well as Wikipedia
Lindsay's questioning of airline pricing is based on a pretty solid breakdown of how COVID has wrecked the airline industry pricing practices

Episode 36 - The Merry Wives of Windsor Sep 08, 2020

Show notes

Merry wives, jealous husbands, faeries and a wedding! This play - rumored to be written at the behest of Queen Elizabeth herself - is a comedy unlike any of the others in Shakespeare's repertoire. An almost proto-restoration play about class, fidelity, and trust, it's a forward looking play that retains the very serious ability to make us laugh.

This week we talk about the themes, comedy, and characters present in the play, especially around gender and jealousy. Join us for an exploration of this rarely produced, but very gratifying play.

Notes:

Thankfully (and unbeknownst to Lindsay at the time of recording), the Folger Shakespeare library has put their "A Modern Perspective" set of essays online, and we encourage you to check out the one dedicated to this play.
Lindsay also located this wonderful mini-essay online (also from Folger) that dives into what makes this comedy so different from Shakespeare's others.

Ancient Bickerings:

Our question was a simple one: who are the more untrustworthy characters of the play? The men or the women?

Episode 35 - Shakespeare on Screen Aug 25, 2020

Show notes

If you're like us, you probably think that the intersection of Shakespeare and the big and small screen might not be a very important one. But you, like us, would be wrong: the two are more intimately entwined than you would believe! From the early days of capturing live action on film, people have been absolutely obsessed with playing in Shakespeare's sand box.

In today's episode, we are looking at how film innovations helped to translate Shakespeare to this new medium in the last year of the 19th century, how it helped define filmed drama in the middle 20th century, and how filmed Shakespeare pushed the boundaries of both film and television into the first decades of the 21st century.

Ancient Bickerings:
Where will Shakespeare on screen go in the next century?

Notes:

Shakespeare on Film by Maurice Hindle
"Viewing Shakespeare on Film" timeline from Encyclopedia Britannica

Clips:
- 1899 scene from King John
- Vitagraph's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1909)
- Asta Nielsen's star vehicle, Hamlet (1920)
- The Taming of the Shrew starring (1929)
- Trailer for A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
- Trailer for Chimes at Midnight (1966)
- Trailer for Romeo & Juliet (1968)
- Trailer for Macbeth (1971)
- Trailer for Antony & Cleopatra (1972)
- Quasi-trailer for the BBC TV version of Hamlet (1980)
- 1989 Henry V - St. Crispin's Day speech
- Trailer for Romeo + Juliet (1996)
- Trailer for Titus (1999)
- Trailer for Hamlet (2000)
- Trailer for The Merchant of Venice (2004)
- Teaser trailer for Macbeth (2015)
- To Be or Not to Be video game

Episode 34 - Much Ado About Nothing Aug 11, 2020

Show notes

One of Shakespeare's most beloved and often-produced plays, Much Ado About Nothing is a very Elizabethan story about men and women, and the lies they're told about each other. Featuring the beloved template for your hosts, Benedick and Beatrice are two of the most accessible characters to modern viewers, and their relationship has become the template for many other relationships of the more liberal ages that followed Shakespeare's world.

Join us for a conversation about those two characters, the preoccupations with fidelity and chastity evident in the play, and the limitations of Shakespeare in representing the reality of relationships between men and women.

Ancient Bickerings:

This week's ancient bickerings is a very simple one: Are Beatrice and Benedick truly in love or is it simply a ruse? Or to put it another way, does the deception used to bring them together reveal their existing love for one another or create it wholecloth?

Episode 33 - The Hollow Crown Season 1 Jul 28, 2020

Show notes

One of the best parts of approaching the Shakespearean plays as we have - that is, in a roughly chronological manner - is that we’ve seen the growth of Shakespeare as a writer. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the recent BBC adaptations of Shakespeare's historical tetralogies in their acclaimed series The Hollow Crown. We talked about the first tetralogy - 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and Richard III - but today we're diving into the second tetralogy, the famed Henriad, comprising Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V which were the subject of the first cycle of The Hollow Crown back in 2012.

Featuring an all-star cast and a massive budget, The Hollow Crown is a masterful retelling of Shakespeare's famous Henriad. That they aired it in the same year as the London Olympics and at the same time as Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee celebrations were underway says something about the way Shakespeare is still regarded by his cultural descendants. It also leaves us wondering about the role of public broadcasters in telling a nation's story.

Here to dive into the nitty gritty details of these four plays and their film adaptations is James Kelly, host of Shakespeare Onscreen and Ranking Thrones (a Game of Thrones podcast) and fellow Shakespeare aficionado!
Notes:

- You can follow James on Twitter (@ssvegerot4evr)
- Catch Shakespeare Onscreen/Ranking Thrones online wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts!

- Also check out James' foray into Shakespearean comic books with his adaptation of Richard III for Olympian Comics

Episode 32 - Henry IV Part 2 Jul 14, 2020

Show notes

So you've read Part 1 of Henry IV and it left you wanting more huh? You wanted more Falstaff? You got it! You wanted more Hal? You got a bit of that too! More of the same engaging, utterly entertaining set of tight character interactions and seamless plot integration? Not so much.

This episode we talk about the complete inversion of Part 1 that is Part 2, with the youthful enthusiasm of Hotspur and Hal replaced with the eminent demise of Hal's two father figures. Lying, rumor-mongering, and hardly any meaningful human interaction await as we dive into this play and near the end of Shakespeare's love of English history.

Notes:

The actor who played Falstaff in the BBC Production was none other than Oscar nominee Antony Quayle, of Laurence of Arabia fame.

Ancient Bickerings:

This time we discussed whether or not Hal believed his father had truly died when he found him asleep at the end of Act 4 - which has all sorts of implications for his relationship with his father, the crown, and even Falstaff.

Episode 31 - Performing Shakespeare Jun 30, 2020

Show notes

“Shakespeare must be heard, not read.” It’s a common-enough refrain, spoken by scholars and fans alike, and for good reason. We were lucky enough to be joined by a panel of Shakespearean actors who proved that the act of performing Shakespeare is a living, breathing art. Join us and our guests -- Hillary Weintraub, Jennifer Hotchkiss, and Dakin Matthews -- for a conversation about performing that shows that all the world truly is a stage...

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