Talking Lear: The Fool and Kent 

"Shakespeare sometimes requires the suspension of disbelief" says Fiona. Well, all theatre requires it as a matter of fact, and it requires it all the time.

After watching Stanley play Anatol on 24, i'm even more amazed by his acting ability. His Russian accent was so on point, i had actually believed he was Russian! very underrated actor in my opinion.

"By indirections find directions out" Polonius, Hamlet II.i

Loved Stanley Townsend as "Warwick" in Hollow Crown.

I love Adrian, I find him really attractive, he's surely very well endowed, such a raw talent!

Drack in the house.

Thank God the weather turned out nice again

MEN OF THE SEA! TRITONS TRIPLE CHALLENGE

the soulhacker himself

why doesn't pete have an essex accent irl :(

What a foolish comment by the presenter that Shakespeare requires suspension of disbelief. Well, sure, it's drama, it's a narrative. Real life dosn't have narrative structure, people don't take it in turns to speak, they don't stay frozen in time when they're offstage and the vast majority of the time 'real people' can't express what they think or feel eloquently, especially verbally, which is rather essential to a play. Shakespeare's writing may be heightened and rhetorical, most of the time, but find any play with even the most naturalistic dialogue and the most mundane situations and you won't have anything that closely resembles how real people speak or behave. As for the specific issue of the many improbable disguises in Shakespeare that rather depends on the context as to how much 'belief' we have to 'suspend'. We live in an age where, near enough, any man or woman can dress any way they please, have any hair style, wear any garment and can change them from week to week. Look through your old photographs and you and your friends are about a few dozen different people throughout your lifetime. School unfiroms here in the Uk now allow boys to wear skirts. We can drastically change our appearance and turn up for work and not lose our jobs. You cannot accurately guess a persons job, status, background from seeing them walk the streets without context. Our culture strongly values freedom of identity. In this our culture is relatively rare from a historical perspective and certainly compared to the culture which Shakespeare belonged to. Shakespeare's culture prescribed appropriate dress and appearance for ever member of society and it was not just taboo but but often illegal to break it. You could be the richest merchant yet the sumptuary laws would not allow you to dress as lavishly as a nobleman. A woman wearing a man's clothes would be 'cross dressing'. You could tell not only a person's social standing but their very profession and their status within the hierarchy of their profession by the clothes they wore. Actors needed special legal dispensation to dress out of social position on stage. In THIS world the disguises are not so improbable. Why would anyone suppose a man dressed as a servant might not be a servant unless they had some particular reason to suspect it, or that the effeminate looking boy might be an actual female in male clothing? Why would a king like Lear, who confesses to never having paid attention to the little people, who is 80 years old and who is metaphorically BLIND, a theme dwelt on extensively within the play (with Kent himself imploring Lear to 'see better'), suppose a random servant he meets might be his old advisor, even if he noticed some physical similairty. For anyone who actually understands the play the suspension of disbelief isn't so great. Want a real demonstration of how truly blind we can all be to people changing their identity? Well, here's a mind-blowing one, and it's one that passed by most directors, producers and actors of this play throughout history: The Fool is Cordelia. And yes, most of us never recognized her... (read the text and think about it... it's all there... "Can you make something of nothing nuncle?"... and what exactly is the button Lear is so concerned with and what is it he sees in Cordelia's face as he dies... and why does he decide to mention his Fool being dead at that precise moment (for that matter why would the greatest playwright in history decide that is the time to reveal it).... you see, Lear's metaphorical eyes finally open and he finally sees what's in front of him... Disguises work if you're not looking for them and Shakeseare pulled off this one immaculately)

Is it weird that I think Adrian Scarborough is cute, but in a nerdy way?

Appalling interviewer. Shame as this could have been terrific