I stayed with Barry in his house near Manchester once...I was working for a nearby theatre and he kindly let me stay for a couple of months. His apartment is magical...filled with all things theatrical with even a Rapunzel-type tower! He also let me see the 'Shakespeare' puppet as he had just finished making this film.
I remember watching this a lot as a kid, even though it scared me a bit. (all the ripping up the bodies.) I never understood it, but was always fascinated. it really is an amazing peice, whoa. this is definitely one of the animations that got me into animation today!
This film is hugely nostalgic for me - especially the music - if you ever meet the musician(s) again do pass on my compliments! Brilliant animation too.
I taped this on VHS close to 30 years ago. Lost count of the times I played it. I'm very glad to see its quality hasn't aged a single second since then.
Oh, now we get it: we think this is an audition when in fact it's Heaven reviewing us. Another work by Barry Purves you might also enjoy is the dark "Rigoletto" on the "Operavox" video. Other Barry Purves works I'd like to see posted on RU-vid are "Screen Play" and "Achilles" with the voice of Derek Jacobi.
@vinx77 His name is bigger than the others and in capitals, so I guesstimated that Gordon is the composer as such and the other three "Hautboys" are instrumentalists or synth programmers (I wrote both the IMDb entry and Wikipedia page: anything at either of those is just what I've been able to glean from the credits, which are amusingly thematic but difficult to work out what people actually did from).
I love this short but I dont recognise some of shakespeares plays, is there a list of the plays the pupet is performing in the order there bing performed.
From IMBD: "The plays Shakespeare runs through: 1) HENRY V - "Wooden O" (I.prologue) and "brave fleet with silken streamers" (III.prologue); 2) Julius Caesar ("Et tu"); 3) Antony and Cleopatra; 4) Coriolanus (V.iii. Volumnia kneeling to her son to save Rome); 5) Henry VIII; 6) Romeo and Juliet; 7) Henry IVs (part 2, V.i.); 8) Richard II "[Dashes the glass upon the ground]" (IV.i); 9) Henry VIs (Joan of Arc and the red and white roses); 10) Richard III (the little princes); 11) Troilus and Cressida (Achilles: "Come tie his body to my horse's tail,/Along the field I will the Troyan trail." V.viii); 12) A Midsummer Night's Dream; 13) Hamlet; 14) Othello; 15) Titus Andronicus ("..there they are, both baked in this pie;/Whereof their moth daintily hath fed..." V.iii); 16) The Tempest; 17) As You Like It; 18) Macbeth; 19) All's Well That Ends Well ("When thou canst get the ring upon my finger...and show me a child beggoten of thy body...then call me husband..." III.ii); 20) Taming of the Shrew; 21) Much Ado About Nothing; 22) Merry Wives of Windsor (V.v); 23) The Merchant of Venice (III.ii) 24) King John ("The wall is high, and yet will I leap down..." IV.iii); 25) Love's Labour's Lost; 26) Pericles (III.ii); 27) Lear; 28) Comedy of Errors; 29) Two Gentlemen of Verona; 30) Twelfth Night; 31)Timon of Athens; 32) Winter's Tale ("[Exit pursued by a bear.]"III.iii); 33) Measure for Measure; 34) Cymbeline "[Jupiter descends in thunder and lightening, sitting upon an eagle...]" V.iv)."
Please, Barry... are these (Next, Screenplay, Rigoletto, etc) available in good DVD prints? I feel so privileged to have met your "Shakespeare" at San Francisco State some 15 or so years ago when I took an animation course there. I've raved about this particular film for years to friends far and wide. Thank you for the joy of your work... Thanks for all your
