Monday, April 08, 2013

Playing Bill Shakespeare

I recently re-watched Shakespeare in Love and got to wondering about how many other times the man himself has been portrayed on screen. And the answer is not nearly as often as you might think.

Joseph Fiennes' Shakespeare is by far the hottest of them all. Here are some other portrayals:

Shakespeare gets punched on behalf of schoolchildren by Blackadder. Please note that Colin Firth plays Shakespeare here - in Shakespeare in Love he plays the jerkass husband of Shakespeare's lady love, played by Gwyneth Paltrow - about whom Kathy Griffin says many uncomplimentary but amusing things.




Doctor Who apparently had a storyline in which they go back in time to meet Shakespeare.



This was interesting - an entire 1978 British series about Shakespeare - who is played by Tim Curry.




And of course the scurrilous and deservedly quickly-forgotten Anonymous. It wasn't enough that they stole the man's work and gave it to Edward de Vere (because you know, how could a non-aristocrat write the works of Shakespeare?) - they had to add the insult of portraying Shakespeare as crass and a bad actor.



Derek Jacobi deserves to be visited by the angry ghost of Bill Shakespeare for his part in all this anti-Stratfordian bullshit. Would he have a total spaz attack like this?