Conducted over Zoom and lasting 2 hours, A Bit Lit came up with the antidote to boring and staid history programmes, aiming their banter at those who don't want to necessarily take history too seriously, but do like to have some knowledge up their sleeves.
Presented by Andy Kesson and Jimmy Tucker, with regular appearances from Willy Shakespeare (Ralph Bogard), we learnt much in this two hours about the Elizabethan period in general, but London, and theatre ettiqette, design, and performance structure, more specifically. If ever there were a more unlikely couple as Simon Russell-Beale and Emma John to pretend to be young lovers setting off from north of the river to attend an afternoon peformance of Hamlet in 1600's London, then I can't think of one.. but that was their premise, and we were given 'lessons', information, anecdotes, maps, etc from various experts in their respective fields as we made the journey.
We learnt about both types of theatre design, the roundhouses such as the Globe, and also those which were built rectangular in structure, such as the Curtain Theatre (Shoreditch), which was heavily featured in this 'documentary'.
If you've ever wondered what it might have been like in 1600 in London, but didn't want to wade through academic material in book form or online, then this would have been the perfect place for you, especially if you were interested specifically in theatre and theatres of that time. We were given descriptions of how the theatres looked, who the audiences were, why people would go to the theatre, what would have happened, differences for men and women at that time etc...
There was Tudor TV giving regular news bulletins of the day along with weather reports. It was all a bit tongue-in-cheek, but we were treated to several gems such as, "We're receiving reports of a tempest in Stratford-Upon-Avon" - so you get an idea for the feel of this... Milton Jones meets Monty Python!
There were also some interactive sections too, as the audience were asked to bring along three food items: an orange, some rosemary, and some cumen. Another expert took us through the smells of London and why those three were important at the time. And as we came to the end of our journey across London and looked at various theatres etc, we arrived at the theatre in time for the perofrmance, which, since this was a comedy interactive experience, we, the audience, had a deal of imput into. A group of Shakespearean Improvisors were to perform the play for us live, and we needed to decide upon the genre (we chose Tragicomedy), the name of the leading actor (Small Ability), and the title of the play (The Parliament Of Bees). The improvisors then went ahead and performed our play for us.
If you've ever wondered what it might have been like in 1600 in London, but didn't want to wade through academic material in book form or online, then this would have been the perfect place for you, especially if you were interested specifically in theatre and theatres of that time. We were given descriptions of how the theatres looked, who the audiences were, why people would go to the theatre, what would have happened, differences for men and women at that time etc...
There was Tudor TV giving regular news bulletins of the day along with weather reports. It was all a bit tongue-in-cheek, but we were treated to several gems such as, "We're receiving reports of a tempest in Stratford-Upon-Avon" - so you get an idea for the feel of this... Milton Jones meets Monty Python!
There were also some interactive sections too, as the audience were asked to bring along three food items: an orange, some rosemary, and some cumen. Another expert took us through the smells of London and why those three were important at the time. And as we came to the end of our journey across London and looked at various theatres etc, we arrived at the theatre in time for the perofrmance, which, since this was a comedy interactive experience, we, the audience, had a deal of imput into. A group of Shakespearean Improvisors were to perform the play for us live, and we needed to decide upon the genre (we chose Tragicomedy), the name of the leading actor (Small Ability), and the title of the play (The Parliament Of Bees). The improvisors then went ahead and performed our play for us.
This Zoom presentation combined corny puns, one-liners and comedy impro with actual historical fact and anecdote / academic supposition, making the two hours in the company A Bit Lit, a little like Not The Nine O'Clock News combined with Horrible Histories performed by Kate Williams!
The whole event was BSL interpreted, and subtitled for the hard of hearing.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 19.1.22
The whole event was BSL interpreted, and subtitled for the hard of hearing.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 19.1.22
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