After a rather hectic pace during the first three days, we decided to take it a little easy.
So we decided to catch a matinee performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Novello theatre, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Prior to that, being truly Singaporean to the core, we paid a visit to Bond Street, which, if only to draw a painfully inadequate comparison, is akin to Orchard Road. It’s the mainstream shopping district of London.
The one thing about it that impressed me most was Niketown, a three-storey homage to all things Nike. It houses almost every line that Nike produces and is divided into neat sections, according to gender and sport/activity.
i, of course, delighted in The Arsenal section. Heh.
The performance started at 2pm and ran for three hours, including intermission.
The Royal Shakespeare Company truly deserves its much vaunted reputation.
i am truly in awe at how they managed to communicate the humour and themes of the play so effectively to a modern audience, many of which consisted of secondary school students presumably watching their first Shakespearean production.
It’s not simply the universality of Shakepeare’s canon; but watching the play, i was reminded of how Shakespeare has to be appreciated from the viewpoint of a performance, first and foremost, before anyone can go on to take it apart and study it to death.
To those whom i will be teaching A Midsummer’s Night Dream, consider yourselves forewarned.
Mua ha ha ha ha…
