One of my favourite bits of media history trivia is that back in the Elizabethan period, people used to publish unauthorised copies of plays by sending someone who was good with shorthand to discretely write down all of the play’s dialogue while they watched it, then reconstructing the play by combining those notes with audience interviews to recover the stage directions; in some cases, these unauthorised copies are the only record of a given play that survives to the present day. It’s one of my favourites for two reasons:
It demonstrates that piracy has always lay at the heart of media preservation; and
Imagine being the 1603 equivalent of the guy with the cell phone camera in the movie theatre, furtively scribbling down notes in a little book and hoping Shakespeare himself doesn’t catch you.
Ah, the 1890s. The Mauve Decade. The Dreyfus affair, the
invention of the Kinetoscope, the two Franco-Dahomean Wars. We all remember
that, but if you recognise these things then you’re a true 1890s kid.
1. You knew that this was the height of fashion.
Olivia Vinall in Platonov. Photo by Johan Persson.
2. And that this was how you should turn up to a
fancy dress party.
James McArdle in Platonov. Photo by Johan Persson.
3. All the cool kids wore matching, beige,
two-piece pyjama suits.
Jade Williams and James McArdle in Platonov. Photo by Johan Persson.
4. Except for that one friend who wore black all
the time.
Jade Williams in The Seagull. Photo by Johan Persson.
5. All of your parties were fuelled by gallons of
vodka…
James McArdle, Pip Carter and Joshua James in Platonov. Photo by Johan Persson.
6. …and ended with somebody getting shot.
Olivia Vinall in Platonov.
Photo by Johan Persson.
7. Because sometimes it felt like nobody could keep
their hands to themselves.
Nina Sosanya, Olivia Vinall and Geoffrey Streatfeild in Ivanov. Photo by Johan Persson.
8. Instead of WhatsApp, you had a servant who would
walk 10 miles to deliver a message.
Beverley Klein in Platonov. Photo by Johan Persson.
9. But there was always that one forest-dweller who
showed up and ruined your garden parties. Leave it out, Osip – amirite?
Jade Williams and Des McAleer in Platonov. Photo by Johan Persson.
10. You were so avant-garde, no matter what your mum thought. It’s not about showing life as it is, it’s about creating a world.
Gosh, that part in Much Ado About Nothing when Beatrice and Benedick read each other’s secret love letters and admit their in love is always so cute. But, like, too cute.
… That’s more like it. That’s the response I’d expect of two hyper-critical sarcastic dorks in love.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes, And make her full of hateful fantasies. Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: A sweet Athenian lady is in love With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; But do it when the next thing he espies May be the lady: thou shalt know the man By the Athenian garments he hath on. Effect it with some care, that he may prove More fond on her than she upon her love: And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
