April 2024.

Just under 4,000 words about Shakespeare and pregnancy. Reading time (according to WordPress): 21 minutes.

Introduction

Eight years ago, back in 2016, I Blogged about my “Shakespeare 2003/4” Project. The main themes were miscarriage, pregnancy and my attempts to see every Shakespeare play at least once during the eight months between July 2003 and March 2004. You can read all 9,000 words of it here.

It is broken up with dozens of headings to make it easier to navigate. There is a heading for each of the 37 plays written by Shakespeare. I was going to write “the 37 plays attributed to Shakespeare” but that might imply some doubt on my part about the authorship of the work. There is none. I believe that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him.

I find some of the theories questioning the authorship fascinating, especially the one that suggests that Christopher Marlowe’s death was faked and that he continued to supply material for Shakespeare from some secret location (probably Italy). But they are just theories.

The 37 plays that I managed to see over that eight-month period were all broadcast by the BBC in its “Complete Works” season (1978-1985). There was also “one for luck”, “The Two Noble Kinsmen”, co-written with John Fletcher. I saw as many stage productions as I could, mainly in London, but also in Stratford-on-Avon, Bristol, Oxford and Chichester. For plays that were not staged during those eight months, I relied on film and TV adaptations, especially for the Histories.

My timescale for watching the plays was determined by events in the early years of our married life. My wife and I were married in August 2001. She had three miscarriages in 2002, and miscarried for the fourth (and final) time in early August 2003. My Shakespeare 2003-4 piece explains what I set out to do:

After we lost the baby I decided to set a timescale for [my Shakespeare Project]: complete the cycle by the end of March 2004, the month that the baby was due.

I felt superstitious about it. If all went well my wife would be pregnant again by the time I had seen every play, and this time things would work out better.

By March 2004 she was pregnant again, and this time things did work out better. Our son was born in November.

By then I had seen all but 10 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays on stage (as well as “The Two Noble Kinsmen”) . That earlier piece lists where and when I saw those 27 plays for the first time, from April 1976 (“Henry IV Part 1”) to 6 November 2004. That was the first time that I saw “The Tempest” on stage, three days before our son was born.

It ends with this paragraph:

I had done what I set out to do: I had seen every Shakespeare play before the end of March 2004, the month that our child would have been born if that previous pregnancy had gone to term. And my wife was pregnant again. I would carry on, trying to see as many stage productions as I could, and attending all the appointments, scans, ante-natal classes, trips to Mothercare and the rest of it. As I wrote earlier, there is a happy ending to all of this: no further miscarriages, two full-term pregnancies, two healthy children, aged 9 and 11 as I type these words [in April 2016]. By the end of “All’s Well that Ends Well” in March 2004 I had seen 24 of the 37 plays on stage, and before our son was born on 9 November I would see a further 3. That left 10 more to see on stage. When my wife was expecting our second child I aimed to complete a similar project: to see stage productions of all the Shakespeare plays that I had only seen on film or TV. But that’s another story…

Here, finally, eight years later is a list of where and when I saw those remaining 10 plays. The story behind my wife’s sixth and final pregnancy is more straightforward. There were few complications. Our son was healthy. Our daughter was born on 11 October 2006.

My Shakespeare viewing was much less intense after our son was born. In 2005 I managed to see “Henry IV Part 2” on stage for the first time. Soon after my wife became pregnant in early 2006 the RSC announced that it would be staging a “Complete Works” season: every play would be performed in Stratford-on-Avon at least once, though not all the productions were in English. I planned ahead, aiming to see the five Histories and four Tragedies that I had still not seen. As things turned out I was able to see three of the Tragedies closer to home, at Shakespeare’s Globe here in London.

As in my earlier, longer Shakespeare piece, the following paragraphs list the productions that I saw as part of this shorter, more manageable “project”. There is a heading for each play, numbered 1 to 10, and details about each production.

1. “Henry IV Part 2”

[Tuesday 10 May 2005, National Theatre]

The National Theatre on the South Bank did not feature in my Shakespeare viewing in 2003-4. “Hamlet” was in rep there in the summer of 2003, with Adrian Lester in the title role. I would like to have seen it but its run had finished by the time I decided to watch every play at least once. My wife and I did go to the National that summer, to see “Jerry Springer: The Opera” with my parents-in-law. My father-in-law could be hard of hearing, and he couldn’t make out the words to many of the songs, At one point he turned to me to ask what that repeated phrase was. For the only time in my life, while sat watching a theatre production, I said, “Chick with a dick. With a dick. With a dick. With a dick. With a dick.” That’s how the song went.

In May 2005 The National staged both parts of “Henry IV”, with Michael Gambon playing Falstaff. “Henry IV Part 1” was the first Shakespeare play I ever saw, in 1976. I saw it again on the evening of Monday 9 May 2005 with my niece. She was now 17 and as planned in 2004 she was godmother to my son. He had been baptized the previous month. On Tuesday 10 May we saw “Henry IV Part 2”. I always welcome straight, well-funded Shakespeare productions, having sat through so many “experimental”, “reimagined” and Fringe adaptations, and that’s exactly what this was.

2. “Titus Andronicus”

[Wednesday 1 March 2006, Courtyard Theatre, Friday 1 September 2006, Shakespeare’s Globe]

The Courtyard Theatre production in March was my first opportunity to see this play on stage. I left home late and couldn’t find the place, tucked away somewhere in Covent Garden as I recall. I had missed so much of the play that I didn’t feel like I had seen it at all.

By this time I had started my daily task of trying to type at least a thousand words per day. There were gaps, but by the end of 2006 I had typed hundreds of thousands of words, in password-protected documents on the Tower PC that was shared between four of us. I have just spent 30 minutes “flicking through” it. It was the most detailed diary that I had ever kept, and I have continued to type at least a thousand words per day on average ever since. Over a million of those words are contained on this Blog: adapted, generalized, semi-anonymous. They are rarely offered in their original state. Occasionally I copy some unedited draft text into a published piece, as I did here (writing about the late Fiona Jones MP) and here (in a piece about the New York Dolls).

There is an excited note on 2 February 2006 that my wife is pregnant again.

I would estimate that there are at least 10 million words spread across all my “Snippets” documents, as I call them, but there is nothing about this March production of “Titus Andronicus”, and I remember very little about it.

The version that I saw at Shakespeare’s Globe on 1 September 2006 was much more memorable, and I scribbled the following notes about it on my return home. I offer them here, unedited. It was a matinee production, and the weather was unseasonably warm. It had been a very hot summer.

Scribbled notes from “Titus”, unedited

[Stupidly, I wrote one side of the paper in pencil, the other side in blue marker pen, so I can hardly read the pencilled in text.]

5 people fainted during the first part in the first part of Titus, all under 30. 4 squeamish boys couldn’t take the sight of blood, stage blood

“Love day” quote
Watery eyes
Hands (re-Lavinia)
Stones (I was reminded of Henry IV – did I note that, using stones to represent the family tree?)
Siren imagery – wracked ship
St Stephen
Popish
Bauble
Wondrous
Done/ undone (you have undone my mother / I had done your mother)
Washed & cut & trimmed
Aaron’s laughter – laugh to break my heart or something
Like a black dog
“Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead”
“I am not mad” cf Constance in “King John”

Revenge, murder, rape are the 3 Furies Tamora and her sons are disguised as.

Vale:
“A barren detested vale, you see it is;
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O’ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe:
Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven”
Tamora, IIii

“There’s not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
No vast obscurity or misty vale,
Where bloody murder or detested rape
Can couch for fear, but I will find them out”
Tamora, Vii

Muddy spring, summer/winter to describe Lavinia’s shame
“Here stands the spring whom you have stain’d with mud,
This goodly summer with your winter mix’d.”
Repeated plot: it happens, then Aaron tells it and then Titus describes the horrors too.

3. “Coriolanus”

[Thursday 8 June 2006, Shakespeare’s Globe]

A matinee, and once again I have words that I typed at the time to remind me of this one. Here they are, tidied up just a bit.

“Coriolanus” was good. I had restricted view seats, looking in at the left-hand side of the stage, out of the sun. It was baking hot in the sun yesterday. I bought a notebook and rainbow pencil to take notes, and, as I’d hoped (and written some time ago) I had all sorts of ideas and lines, which I managed to write down.

I was thinking about the first time I went to the Globe, and about that time in our lives … [This is covered in Shakespeare 2003/4.] A few scribbled notes from “Coriolanus”, unedited

IV vi
“You have made good work” (repeated)
“Boys pursuing butterflies”
“Garlic eater”

V iv
Butterfly / grub
Milk: Male tiger [earlier, tiger feet: check the reference]

Earlier Scenes

It shall be so! It shall be so! It shall be so!
MILDLY

4. Henry VI Part 1

[Wednesday 2 August 2006, RSC Stratford]

See below.

5. Henry VI Part 2

[Wednesday 2 August 2006, RSC Stratford]

See below.

6. Henry VI Part 3

[Wednesday 2 August 2006, RSC Stratford]

All three parts of “Henry VI” in one day: Part 1 started at 10.30am and ended at 12.45pm. Part 2 started at 1.30pm, so there was just about time for lunch, at The Garrick, the oldest pub in town. We went back there for dinner, thinking we had time to get back for Part 3 at 7.30pm, but our food took a while to arrive and we missed the first few minutes. It was all over by 10.55pm.

I have detailed notes, typed the following day, which I will not trouble you with here. They would need too much editing and include things like where we parked and what we ate. They start with the simple phrase, “My, what a marathon yesterday was …”

I had originally planned to go with my niece, who accompanied me to the two parts of “Henry IV” in May 2005 but she didn’t want to go. I invited the wife of an old university friend and she was happy to be there. She had spent many years as a stage actress, especially in musical theatre. She and my old university friend had been based in the US for many years but had just moved to London, not far from Brompton Oratory.

My day was longer as a result. It was a 15-minute drive to South Kensington to collect her, and then we headed back out of town to get to Stratford-on-Avon. Similarly, dropping her home added another 30 minutes to my day. I left home at 7.15am and returned at 1am the following morning.

The day is summarized in this post about the word “coloured”, from March 2019. Here are the relevant paragraphs:

As former Home Secretary Amber Rudd learnt last week, “coloured” is not an acceptable word to describe people of black and minority ethnic background. It is not acceptable here in the UK in 2019, and has not been for many decades, assuming it ever was. I have encountered many people over the years who had not learnt this.

One memorable occasion was in the summer of 2006 in Stratford-on-Avon. I was there for the day, with the wife of an old friend from college, to see all three parts of “Henry VI”. The three plays were spread out over 12 hours. It was quite a day, incorporating over four hours’ driving time for me, before and after the performances. During the first interval (in “Henry VI part I”) we ended up in a brief conversation with someone who looked at least 10 years older than me. He started it, drawn more to my friend’s wife than to me, unquestionably. If I had been there on my own, he would have left me alone. Chuck Iwuji, the actor playing Henry VI, is black. Just after the bell had sounded for the final time, to encourage us to return to our seats, our fellow theatre-goer said something along the lines of, “I wonder what Shakespeare would have said if he’d known there’d be a coloured actor playing the king. I’ll bet he’s spinning in his grave right now.” I still wonder, all these years later, if I should have put him straight, but the bell had rung. I said nothing. Literally. Not even a “See you later” or a “Take it easy”. Just a shake of the head. We returned to our seats still in a state of shock.

My assessment of Part 1, from my original notes: “The performance was great. Katy Stephens as Joan of Arc (and later Margaret of Anjou) was terrific. So was Gloucester, and so was York …”

Later, I made the following notes about the plays:

There’s lots of use of the number 10: 10 to 1 comes up a lot, and “these 10 commandments” used to describe Lady Eleanor’s nails, with which she wants to scratch out the eyes of Queen Margaret. When Edward IV woos the widow one of his brothers describes it as a 10 day wonder. The quarrel between a master and his apprentice mentions “these 10 bones” as one of them holds up his fingers.

I was interested that York claims to know what Somerset is thinking a lot of the time – “I know what’s on your mind” kind of stuff. Also, York, when plotting how he’s going to try and seize the crown talks about ideas cramming into his head.

There were some scary scenes: witchcraft (Joan of Arc, and Nell), and people being ferried to hell, and lots of ghosts appearing, right from the start when the ghost of Henry V appears.

There was lots about fathers and sons too. There was Talbot and his son, dying together outside the gates of Rouen(?), and then the father who killed his son and the son who killed his father. The Duke of York makes many mentions of his sons, and the play ends with the birth of Edward IV’s son, and the future Richard III holding him. There was use of borne and born (and bourn), a nice triple word-play, along with uses of bear and labour.

3-Aug-2006 13.47 The phone’s just gone, twice, once from Peugeot (a survey) and then [one of my niece’s school-friends] … We chatted about university and Shakespeare … I’ve lost my thread on the Shakespeare stuff, so I’ll transcribe later. [I see now, nearly 18 years later, that I never did.]

7. “Antony and Cleopatra”

[Wednesday 9 August 2006, Shakespeare’s Globe]

Another matinee and another hot day. Unlike the previous few entries, I made no detailed notes about this production, just jotted down a few words from the play that jumped out at me.

“Horse’s stale” was the main one. I copied this quote from Act I scene iv:

thou didst drink
The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed’st; on the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this–
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now–
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank’d not.

I also made this “note to self”:

Shakespeare: Words to look up

I think that an hour, with some concentration, on the Shakespeare concordance, would be very productive. Some words to look up, especially with reference to “Antony and Cleopatra”: horse, kite, crocodile, poison, serpent, snake, cloud, im/patient/ce, ay, I, eye (all one sound to Shakespeare audiences).

Back to 2024, and I have just spent time reading this review of the production from LondonTheatre.co.uk. I remembered that Frances Barber was excellent as Cleopatra but couldn’t remember who played Antony: Nicholas Jones.

8. “Henry VIII”

[Thursday 24 August 2006, RSC Stratford, at Holy Trinity Church]

I remember far more about this production than about “Antony and Cleopatra” at the Globe. It was staged in Holy Trinity, the church where Shakespeare is buried. It was the first time that I had ever visited his tomb. I had bought two tickets but my niece didn’t want to come. I can see from my notes at the time that I thought about asking various other people to come with me (including my companion to the three parts of “Henry VIII”) but decided to drive there and back alone. I needed some time to myself.

I referred to this production in that earlier piece about the word “coloured”:

Incidentally, three weeks after the all-day “Henry VI” fest I returned to Stratford-on-Avon for another rarely performed Shakespeare work, “Henry VIII”, at Holy Trinity Church. Shakespeare is buried in that church, as you may know. There was nothing to suggest that he had been spinning in his grave at the prospect of a black actor playing the role of Henry VI. I think that Shakespeare would have been fine with it.

There was a familiar-looking journalist in the row behind me. It took a while to work out who it was: Quentin Letts, sketch writer and theatre critic of the Daily Mail at the time. He took notes throughout the performance. I made a note about his clothes: red socks and brown shoes, a combination I have never worn.

9. “King John”

[Saturday 9 September 2006, RSC Stratford]

My niece, now 18, accompanied me to this one, the usual 100-minute drive from West London. She was off to university later that month so this was the last trip we would make before she left London for her first term. Once again I have very few notes about the production in my Snippets document, but scribbled a few quotes and reminders. I had managed to read the play a few days beforehand, finishing it on a train heading back from working in Purley, of all places.

Our journey back to London was severely delayed by an accident on the M40. The road was closed a junction or two ahead of us but we didn’t know about it until it was too late. It was one of those rare times (for me at least) where the delay was so bad that everyone switched off their engines and most people left their cars. We took a walk up and down the hard shoulder. It added at least two hours to our return home. We would have returned in daylight if things had gone to plan but it was dark by the time we were on the M4, 15 minutes from home.

The following day I typed the following:

I scribbled in the book, for once. While we were stuck in traffic on the M40 yesterday, I took out my pencil and scribbled. Does that mean I’ll go back to it? Here’s what I wrote on a small piece of paper.

Lots of blood and heat and rage
So much blood and heat and rage
A Fever (verb conjunction)
Tears – the word RHEUM came up a lot
Mad Grief
This earth for my throne
Lion Skin / Calf skin
You’ve got the skin of a lion about you
The heart of a lion I don’t doubt you

10. “Timon of Athens”

[Saturday 28 October 2006, RSC Stratford]

Our daughter was born on Wednesday 11 October 2006. I still had one more Shakespeare play to see on stage, but that was scheduled for later in the month.

I am aware of my superstitions. Although I had hoped to see every Shakespeare play on stage before my daughter’s birth I was not living in fear until this final production.

I drove to Stratford-on-Avon and back on this autumn Saturday, the night the clocks went back. It was, unfortunately, a rather experimental adaptation. The themes of displacement and exile were explored by putting us, the audience, through some of the experiences of migrants and exiles. We had to wait in one room before being let into another. There was an “Immigration Centre” feel to the whole thing. As with “Coriolanus” back in March, and as with a much later staging of “Cymbeline” at the Lyric Hammersmith many years later, I wasn’t sure that I could count it as a full-blown Shakespeare production, but it says “Timon of Athens” on the ticket, and I was there.

By now I had seen at least two stage productions of 22 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays. A further nine years would pass before I set up this Blog. My visits to the theatre are far less frequent than they used to be, but I post occasional pieces about Shakespeare.

This piece from 9 November 2017 (my son’s 13th birthday) records how I “completed the set” for the second time. This one from 2018 is about my attempts to see “The Two Noble Kinsmen” for a second time.

Shakespeare in 2024

As a family the four of us have only sat through one complete Shakespeare production together: “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, a graduation performance at the ArtsEd School, directed by Sir Trevor Nunn. The children were both still at primary school. They are now 19 and 17. We have no plans to see any more Shakespeare productions in the near future. And that’s just fine.

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