Shakespeare's Clown
49% Fact
+ 51% Truth
= 112% HISTORY
1598: Will Kempe is a leading member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a freewheeling improvisational genius, and the most popular entertainer of his day.
1599: Shakespeare fires him. It all begins to unravel.
1603: Kempe is dead, and buried in a pauper's grave.
Literature has a hell of a lot to answer for.
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Let not your clowns speak more than is set down for them. That's monstrous.
- Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1599
Bollockes to that. I'm going to morris dance to Norwiche.
- W. Kempe, apocryphal, c.1600
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- Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1599
Bollockes to that. I'm going to morris dance to Norwiche.
- W. Kempe, apocryphal, c.1600
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Meet Kempe's gravediggers, as they attempt to reconstruct his story from half-remembered fragments of fact and bone.
Marvel as they sing, dance, drink, and go way off text (in his honour, of course).
Laugh as they weep.
Weep as they laugh.
Shakespeare's Clown is a show unlike other shows. A contemporary drama set four hundred years ago. A documentary without any facts. A play about improvisation; improvisation about plays. A comedy that's deadly serious. A tragedy, you'll die laughing.
WARNING: CONTAINS MORRIS DANCING
(also bear-baiting, plague and bone-crushing poverty)
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Touring from April 2012. Dates will start appearing here from August.
Interested venues, please contact our Artistic Director.
A Strange Bedfellows production.
Directed by Daniel Bye
Performed by Jack Merivale, Paul Mundell and Dan Snelgrove.
Follow Will Kempe on Twitter.
With special thanks to: National Theatre Studio, Theatre Royal Bath, Northern Stage and Sherburn High School for their enormous support with residencies during which the show was developed.
Marvel as they sing, dance, drink, and go way off text (in his honour, of course).
Laugh as they weep.
Weep as they laugh.
Shakespeare's Clown is a show unlike other shows. A contemporary drama set four hundred years ago. A documentary without any facts. A play about improvisation; improvisation about plays. A comedy that's deadly serious. A tragedy, you'll die laughing.
WARNING: CONTAINS MORRIS DANCING
(also bear-baiting, plague and bone-crushing poverty)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Touring from April 2012. Dates will start appearing here from August.
Interested venues, please contact our Artistic Director.
A Strange Bedfellows production.
Directed by Daniel Bye
Performed by Jack Merivale, Paul Mundell and Dan Snelgrove.
Follow Will Kempe on Twitter.
With special thanks to: National Theatre Studio, Theatre Royal Bath, Northern Stage and Sherburn High School for their enormous support with residencies during which the show was developed.
