This was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I haven't laughed so much since Twelfth Night at the Pop-Up Globe.
The HandleBards tour the UK on bicycles, playing Shakespeare (usually outdoors) at various points along the route. They carry with them whatever props, costume and scenery they can squeeze onto their bikes (i.e. not much). There is a girls' group and a boys' group, each only four strong, and it was 'The Boys' we saw, performing Richard III in the grass courtyard of Lancashire's Hoghton Tower.
Richard III has a cast of forty-two. One of the HandleBards played Richard, and the other three took the remaining forty-one between them. As they helpfully pointed out, that is an average of 13.6 characters each. Needless to say, delightful chaos ensued; The Tragedy of King Richard III became The Farce of Richard and III Other Actors. What Shakespeare would have thought one can only guess, but one has a sneaking suspicion he might approve. It was fast, rowdy and fun.
Paring Shakespeare back to this extent, and treating the text and characters with a cheerful and reckless abandon, is brave, but it clearly paid off with a vengeance. The endless character swapping (done mostly by donning and doffing different hats) meant that the audience (and quite possibly the actors) was never quite sure who was playing whom at any given moment, and for those not familiar with the original play it probably boarded on the completely confusing (I know it reasonably well, and it was confusing enough to me). The whole thing was quite barmy and yet utterly hilarious. Only in England!
Richard III is Shakespeare's second-longest play (only Hamlet is longer) but they managed to squeeze it into about two hours. This was something of a mercy because it was open-air, and Lancashire's evening air, even in the height of summer, is apt to be rather parky. However, at least it didn't rain.
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| Hoghton Tower, via |
Seeing Shakespeare at Hoghton Tower was particularly special because there is a local story that Shakespeare's so-called 'lost years' were spent in Lancashire, and that he lived for a while at Hoghton Tower as well as the homes of other prominent local families. The reasoning behind begins with the premise that Shakespeare was a Catholic and runs thus: several of the teachers at Shakespeare's Stratford school were Jesuit priests from Lancashire, which was a recusant stronghold during the Reformation; since he had connections in the area or at the very least people of his own faith, Shakespeare may therefore have headed up there when facing trouble at home (there is a story that he poached Thomas Lucy's deer, earning the wrath of that local lord). Once oop north, the story is that he lay low (Lancashire, surrounded by hills, is sometimes known as the 'hidden county;' the difficulty of passing the hills made the county a relatively safe one for Catholics during the Reformation) and tutored the children of the local Catholic gentry.
The 1581 will of Alexander de Hoghton mentions a William Shakeshafte 'now dwelling with me,' requiring a Sir Thomas Hesketh either to take Shakeshafte into his service or to find him another 'master.' What kind of master is not specified, but the mention of Shakeshafte comes just after one of players, 'play clothes' [presumably costumes] and musical instruments, so the theory is that de Hoghton was seeking for the young actor Shakespeare the security of a patron. Shakespeare, the story goes, began his acting career in Lancashire, performing in the halls of the great houses there (apart from Hoghton Tower, Rufford Old Hall, the home of Sir Thomas Hesketh, also lays claim to harbouring Shakespeare). And the Shakeshafte bit? That was an alias, of course, because Thomas Lucy was still thirsting for William's blood. (It has been suggested that Shakeshafte was a variant of the family name used by William's grandfather.)
As with so many of the stories surrounding Shakespeare, this one is
impossible to prove or disprove (many Shakespearean scholars would
pooh-pooh it), but it makes for a jolly good yarn. One rather surprising subscriber to the story is the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who has concluded that Shakespeare 'probably was Catholic!' (Wonders will never cease.) Furthermore, Dr Williams has actually written a play based on an imagined meeting between the Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion, who is known to have spent time in Lancashire, and William Shakespeare. If Shakespeare is Shakeshafte, then it is indeed possible that they may have met.
The historian Michael Wood also believes that Shakespeare spent time in Lancashire. The second episode of his series In Search of Shakespeare, which you can view here, examines the Lancashire connection and Alexander de Hoghton's will.
Other useful links:
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| Is this Shakespeare country? |
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