Join Get Into Reading London Project Manager, Penny Markell, in a session all about reading Shakespeare in groups, with a focus on building confidence and encouraging wary readers – facilitators included – to have a go. Experience being part of a group that is reading Shakespeare, discuss how the shared reading of Shakespeare is similar to and different from other texts, and consider how to prepare an extract from a play to facilitate yourself.

To sign up for the course, download the Masterclass booking form on our website.

In our Poet on Her Work series, Gwyneth Lewis movingly writes about her great long poem A Hospital Odyssey, written while her husband was suffering from cancer.

We have some great new fiction for you to sample with two extracts from Steve Sem-Sandberg’s mortifyingly powerful Emperor of Lies (Faber, July 2011), set in the Łodz ghetto. And David Almond’s ‘The Book of Beasts’ is taken from his first novel for adults, The True Tale of Monster Billy Dean (Viking, September 2011), a test of a child’s innocence. David Constantine’s short story, ‘Strong Enough to Help’ revolves about the way books and poems can connect people up both to each other and to themselves.

Angela Macmillan talks about putting together her new anthology for a younger audience, A Little, Aloud for Children.

We welcome two new essayists whom we hope to hear from regularly: Andrew Crompton writing and drawing on almost anything and everything, and Alan Wall offering an occasional series on the way that words’ meanings or forms change over time, and yet they stick around part of our everyday usage. It’s like the archaeology of the spoken word. And we welcome back and old friend, Kenneth Steven, who writes of the mountains.

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How will it be, I wonder, as I set up the room?  People begin to arrive, greet each other, make a cup of tea and settle in.  Shona arrives and I feel such relief.  It is so good to see her.  ‘Sorry’ she says, ‘I had something on last week and couldn’t make it’.  ‘It is great to see you again’ I say.  She does not know what it actually means to me to have her here again.

We begin by reminding ourselves what has happened and begin to realise how complicated it is.  Lots to explain and I get myself in a muddle trying to make sure everyone understands.

Noel says ‘can I play Don John, the bad one’?

We assign roles and I ask Barbara if she wants to take a role.  She looks worried and anxious and I say, ‘what about Claudio?’  She says okay.

Then we start reading, finishing off  act 2 scene 1.  Act 2 scene 2.  The vicious hard-hearted Don John and his side kick Borrachio plan the nasty scheme to cause maximum distress and chaos to Hero and Claudio.  We can all see what is going to happen and feel like shouting out as if we are in a pantomime ‘look out!  behind you!’  But we can do nothing other than read on.

When we get to Balthasar singing his song, Noel refuses to sing – Sigh No More.  No problem…whatever it takes to keep this show on the road, I’m your woman, so I  sing it and find that almost everyone starts to sing with me.  Just as well really as my voice on its own is pretty dire!  Cuddled up among the other 6 or 7 voices it’s not so bad!  We make a great and glorious sound and get caught up in the rhythm and rhyme.  Thankfully, Balthasar takes up his role again.

Barbara’s part is not small and she reads it very well.  I can see her confidence rising as she looks at me for confirmation and I smile at her letting her know I can see her effort and achievement.  It is only the second time she has ever read in two years of attending the group.  Barbara has told the group she is severely dyslexic and can’t read and here she is reading Shakespeare aloud in a group!

We complete act 2 scene 3 and manage act 3 scene 1, all in an unhurried and easy way and end the session with Robert Herrick’s ‘To the Virgins, To Make Much Of Time’.

There is a buoyant mood in the group as we slowly pack up and get ready to leave.  Nobody seems in a hurry and I overhear people congratulating Barbara on reading her role so well.  Magic.

The Rest

It takes us six weeks in total to read the play.  The pace has felt good, not too fast, but we are ready to finish now.  The reading does require extra effort in order to understand.  And such a lot happens in the action.  It is important to remember who else is on stage and what the other actors would be doing at the same time as those who are speaking as this can dramatically alter the meaning and impact.  There is a surprising amount of complexity to keep up with and I was aware of some people’s confusion at times.  Slowing down definitely helps.

Not only is the Shakespearian language very different to what we are used to but much of the way of life is also strikingly at odds with what we know.  The idea that a woman’s worth is almost zilch if she is not a virgin on marrying or that a father would rather his daughter dead than discover she was not a maid on her wedding day takes some getting used to for a modern audience – well, it did for our group!

The visit to the Globe production of Much Ado About Nothing is in September and most people seem keen to go.  We discuss watching the play on DVD and they want to do this too so a date is arranged.  It has been hard, at times, to imagine the action of the play as we read.  Viewing the DVD or theatre production will let us see what we have been reading as it was meant to be experienced – as a dramatic production.

As a facilitator reading Shakespeare with a group has definitely required more of me.  Largely this is because I am not confident myself with the language and I must put in extra effort to understand.  I found myself at times needing to do quite a bit of explaining to ensure people were able to follow.  Sometimes it is a fine line between letting people work it out for themselves and explaining.  However if people get bored because the words begin to not mean anything then that doesn’t work either.

Have a wide range of capacity in the group is also a juggling act as a facilitator.  Some people have understood it all and don’t need help but others struggle and finding a way to make sure they can keep up without singling them out is a skill in itself.

On reflection it seems to me that people are happy to have read the play and are also pleased to move on to something else.  Shona says to me while we are making a cup of tea:

It is difficult to read but I did notice it getting easier the more we read.

Another person tells me that she thinks next time (NEXT TIME!!) we should read Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Small turnout, five people only.  Three apologies from last week and two unknowns.  Shona, who is new to the group, looked to me as if she hated it last week, she had a strange look on her face all through the group.  And she is not here…I’ve frightened her away, she can see I’m rubbish!  Immediately I start to worry…maybe it is too much, perhaps they did not enjoy it, maybe it will harm the group doing something that is so difficult.  I try not to let the anxiety I am feeling become obvious to those present.  Three of the people who are away are the most comfortable with Shakespeare – each having read some previously and having enthusiasm for it – and they are not there to bring that to the group.

Jenny says of last week that she is ‘proud’ of managing to read what we have so far.  Others agree but I am aware that there is a strong underlying feeling that it is difficult.

We start.  Act one, scene three.  Pretty straight forward but I wonder if I am spending too much time trying to explain the plot.  I seem to have got into a role of explaining the action.  I am anxious that people will get bored and so I am trying to make sure everyone is up with the action and on board, that nobody gets left behind.

The reading is very good.  People are reading their parts very well, not rushing the words and I am enjoying their efforts a lot.

We move onto act two, scene one.  It is a long scene and it seems difficult for everyone to keep in mind the whole of the action.  We break it into small bits and I remind everyone that a lot of actors are on the stage and we are getting different perspectives form each little interaction.  We don’t manage to finish the scene and end two and a half pages before the end.

Jo says ‘it’s hard’ and others agree with her.  Noel says ‘I think it’s beyond me’.  The only consolation about this is that Noel does say most things are beyond him.  My anxiety increases and I start to wonder if we will make it to the end.  I don’t want to stop, that will feel like an acknowledgement that it is too hard for us.  That would not be something I want to have people think or feel.  I have to keep going and find a way to keep it feeling fun, enjoyable and doable.

Why have I put myself through this!  We could have stuck to a novel.  We would really enjoy it and I would not be worrying like I am now!

Session three next week…

Lessons for the terrified on reading Shakespeare with a group

Shakespeare has mostly terrified me as a reader.  The few times I tried to read him I felt all my inadequacies loom before me in their hugest possible forms.  I’m no good, my intellect is rubbish, I can only manage simple things, people will see I am stupid, the list goes on!

Last year I set myself a goal to read some Shakespeare.  I read The Winter’s Tale with two other people, The Merchant of Venice in a small group of three or four people and Macbeth on my own.  I followed up all the readings with viewing the play either at the theatre or on film.

It was hard, and I did not understand all of it easily – probably some of it at all.  I would benefit from second and third readings of each – but I have learnt that anything worth reading is worth reading again and that fuller understanding and enjoyment would be the gain of doing so.  I can imagine reading them again – they were good. 

So far, in my role as a facilitator of Get Into Reading groups, I have only tackled Shakespeare in poem form or short excerpts from his plays.  The thought of reading a play with a group has terrified me.  People will see I am no good at this and finally they will realise I am a fake! 

So it was with much anxiety that I suggested to the group that we read Much Ado About Nothing.  We are likely to have the opportunity to attend a performance at the Globe Theatre in September and I hoped that group members might be keen to read it before we went.  Also, the group has read quite a range of material yet not really anything very difficult and I hoped that they might feel a real sense of achievement if we did read Shakespeare. 

Some of the novels the group has previously read include Of Mice and Men, The Uncommon Reader, Silas Marner, The End of the Affair and, most recently, The Mayor Of Casterbridge.  We have also read some plays including An Inspector Calls and All My Sons. 

The group meets in a library and has a regular core of around eight or nine people who attend most weeks with some others coming more infrequently.  It is an open group so it has people who come as they have seen notices promoting the group and it sounds of interest.  Others are referred by mental health workers, occupational therapists or drug and alcohol agencies.  The range of confidence with literature varies greatly, from those with an English degree to one member who tells us she has severe dyslexia and is only learning to read now (in her 40’s).    

Not everybody was excited about the idea. However, fortunately, some people were very keen. We took time to discuss the possibility.  One woman said ‘I’ve never read any Shakespeare so for that reason I’d like to do it’.  Another person pointed out that we have a person with English as a second language and that he would find it difficult.  I agreed with her and asked this person what his thoughts were.  He said he found all reading in English challenging but would be happy to join us anyway as he thought he would get something worthwhile from the experience, as he had from everything else we had read together.  Another woman told us she would really like to do it as she was doing GCSE English and had to do some Shakespeare for that and thought it might be helpful for her. 

Agreement was arrived at and the following week we started.

Session One:

The turnout to the group was good – ten people.  Even those who had not been that keen came – phew!  They are still with me.  I was nervous and anxious and I know it showed. 

Some of the group had been at the event last year in which Ben Crystal gave us a mini workshop presentation on Comedy of Errors immediately before we saw the play in Regents Park.  I reminded people that he said it is supposed to be fun and not to try to understand everything.  This was like being given permission not to stress – very helpful!

It seemed important to begin by stating some ideas that would underpin our endeavour.  So I started with a little ‘speech’ stating:

• We will go slowly, there is no need to hurry
• No question is a bad/stupid question – if you want to know something ask and someone in the group will most likely be able to help
• Its ok not to understand it all, in fact don’t expect to do so – some people spend years studying it, we are reading it once
• It is likely to feel hard but we have the benefit of the group to help us

I handed out photocopies of the character list and also a very brief synopsis on each scene.  I decided that certainty and clarity would win out over anticipation and mystery in this case!  People were very keen on this and seemed to find having something to hold on to very reassuring.

So off we went. 

We read the first twenty five lines and stopped.  Pretty straight forward.  A quick summary of the content; Don Pedro is arriving soon with Claudio from the war.  Claudio’s uncle sheds tears of joy at his nephew’s good report.  John says to the group:

what a beautiful line…’how lovely it is to weep at joy than to joy at weeping’. 

 I start to relax and breathe… maybe we can do this?  Maybe it will be ok.  We read on. 

Scene One is quite long and takes us some time.  When we finish I suggest maybe that is enough for the day and we should read the poem but someone says:

The next scene is very short can we read it?

So we are off again.  And it is good.  The tension in the play is building.  We, as readers, are understanding the action and are getting interested. It is harder than we are used to but we are managing and it is not so hard we can’t understand at all.  And we have enjoyed ourselves.  Perhaps there is not much more we can ask?    

The readers enunciate clearly and are measured and well paced, impressive in fact and most people do volunteer to read, even Barbara who has never read before!  She says ‘give me a big part’ but when we come to choose a role she opts for a small one which she manages well.

In choosing a poem my thoughts were to pick something related in theme but also relatively simple in content.  We read ‘The Secret’ by John Clare.  And then they ask for a second poem.  I look at the clock and think, ok lets squeeze it in and I give the ‘Pretty Words’ by Elinor Wylie.  We read it and two people say simultaneously, “wow”, and one says, “that is so fantastic’.  “Yes”, I think, “I agree”.  This gift of words is fantastic.

Peter ends the session by saying:

Things like Eliot, Shakespeare and Hardy seemed grand and unapproachable to me before but now I wonder why I have not had it all my life as it is so good.

Lowlands, West Derby, Liverpool 12
Saturday, 23rd July 2011, 2.00 pm and Sunday, 24th July 2011, 2.00 pm

Reynolds Park, Church Road, Woolton
Friday, 29th July 2011, 7.00 pm and Saturday, 30th July 2011, 2.00 pm

Sudley House, Mossley Hill, Liverpool 18
Sunday, 31st July 2011, 2.00 pm

Tickets cost £7 (£5 concessions) and are available from News From Nowhere (96 Bold St, L1 4HY) or via http://www.liverpoolnetworktheatre.org.uk/

This, for all fans of The Wire, Shakespeare and, well, anything-that-will-almost-certainly-be-brilliant, is a very exciting prospect but it’s not the first time The Bard and The Wire have come together…

Cast your minds back 11 and a half months and you might remember that Sonja Sohn (The Wire‘s Kima Greggs), paid us a visit to read the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, as part of our Merseyside Community Theatre project.

Sonja Sohn in Liverpool with her Romeo (Steve McGowan)

You can see her in action on Channel Four News by clicking here.

Shakespeare, like rappers, and the slang used by characters in The Wire, changed words,  borrowed parts of words from foreign langauges, joined words together and invented entirely new ones. Shakespeare invented approximately 1700 words in his plays and poems.

Professor Phil Davis’ work on the ‘Shakespeared Brain’ has recently been featured on US blog, The Big Think. The interview tells us more about the impact of these creative inventions on our brain:

He is studying what he calls “functional shifts” that demonstrate how Shakespeare’s creative mistakes “shift mental pathways and open possibilities” for what the brain can do. It is Shakespeare’s inventions–particularly his deliberate syntactic errors like changing the part of speech of a word–that excite us, rather than confuse us.

Phil Davis, also editor of The Reader magazine, will be leading a seminar on the ‘Shakespeared Brain’ at the Reading for Wellbeing Conference on 17th May, with his colleauge from Bangor University, Professor Guillaume Thierry.

Contact Claire Speer to book your place.

The Reader Organisation features strongly in the second half of this (from twenty minutes on): one of their reporters, Richard Lea, visits a north London library to join one of Paul Higgins’ Get Into Reading groups, and finds out for himself how reading aloud helps with depression and dementia; plus, editor of The Reader, and Head of School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool, Phil Davis, talks about his academic research into how Shakespeare’s linguistic inventiveness sets neurons alight.

Listen here.

It was rather coincidental then that I should come across a Shakespearean sonnet in my collection of collated poems that dealt with the very same subject. That the Bard himself should write about self-love seems a little strange at first, considering that as a fad (or even a cult, if you wish to put it in such terms) it’s very much grounded in the 21st Century. But of course, Shakespeare was light years ahead of his time in judging the temperature of heated social concerns. It’s also quite reassuring to know for sure that our distant cousins had almost the same pre-occupations as we do. Old Bill’s take on the topic is not as negative or subtly scathing as Coleridge’s, yet again it is clear that loving one’s self is not to be lauded too much, even if it does take up a considerable amount of being, time and wall space for all those mirrors. Indeed, self-love is termed a ‘sin’ – surely the worst thing there is -not once but twice, with a person only being ‘saved’ from a complete descent into vacuous vanity by loving another.

With all that said, where does that leave those of us who do not have a significant other? Who knows. So much for the commonly paraphrased idea “You can’t love anyone else until you love yourself first”, when loving yourself doesn’t make you attractive in the slightest. It appears that, even with the advent of self-help and positive affirmation, a quick Google of the term ‘self-love’ shows it to have an ugly head bound up with excessive pride, conceit and narcissism. Though a little bit of pampering doesn’t go amiss, perhaps the poets have the right idea. Besides, who can afford to love themselves too much right now, in the wake of cuts and Christmas debts? Any ‘me time’ at the moment will stretch to one or two minor fripperies, a comfy spot and a good book or several. I don’t think either Coleridge or Shakespeare could complain about that kind of self-love.

Sonnet 62

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chopp’d with tann’d antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)