00:00This day is called the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day and comes safe home
00:10will stand at tiptoe when this day is named and rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that
00:17shall live this day and see old age will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors and say,
00:23tomorrow is in Crispian. Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say, these
00:30wounds I had on Crispian's day. Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot. But he'll remember
00:37with advantages what feats he did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth
00:44as household words, Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and
00:49Gloucester, be in their flowing cups, freshly remembered. This story shall a good man teach
00:56his son. And Crispian Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day to the ending of the world.
01:05But we in it shall be remembered. But even as he makes whatever he makes, and no matter how
01:15much he makes, man longs to destroy the thing he has made. Finding no enemy, he becomes his
01:22own enemy. As he traps the horse, so he traps other men. But the others strike back, trap closing
01:28on trap. Having eaten enough, man must build a wall around whatever food is left. And other
01:35men must pull down that wall so the roof gets split. And the rain, the changing air, wash away
01:45whatever is left of man and his cities, when men have done with them.
01:53Good. That's much better that time. You've got the verbs and the separate ideas much clearer.
02:02I think, if we can get back into it now, is your original thing of the kind of character
02:08you're playing as opposed to the one that David's playing. You know, a dueled inset, if
02:12you like. You know, a proper thing, especially after Nancy's country.
02:16Now tell me, what is it you're trying to do?
02:19What we're trying to do is to break out of a circle. A circle in which the theatre is imprisoned.
02:29Now, our theatre, as you know, is rooted in Shakespeare. And we believe, from the text
02:34and from what we know of the world of Shakespeare, that in his time the theatre spoke, not just
02:39to a small group, a culture group, but to everyone, to the butcher and the baker as well
02:44as the nobleman, the courtier and the poet. And we think that a theatre that can do that
02:50is the only kind of theatre that really counts. And therefore, what we're trying to do in this whole thing,
02:55this whole enterprise of travelling around London and playing in all sorts of odd places,
02:59is to reach the particular class of people that is conspicuous by its absence from the theatre.
03:08All human life is here. Now, this could be the motto for this smash hit of the 1550s. What about this for a build-up?
03:17The lamentable and true tragedy of Mr. Arden of Feversham and Kent,
03:26who was most wickedly murdered by the means of his disloyal and wanton wife,
03:33who, for the love she bare to one Mosley,
03:37hired two desperate ruffians, Blackwill and Shakebag, to kill him!
03:46What? 20 guineas? Give my fellow George Shakebag and me 20 guineas,
03:52and if they'll have thine own father slain that thou mercenary at his land, we'll kill him.
03:56Aye, thy mother, thy brother, thy sister, all thy kin.
04:00Well, this is it.
04:01Arden of Feversham hath highly wronged me over divers matters,
04:08that no revenge but death will serve the turn.
04:12Will you two kill him? Here's guineas Dan.
04:15Give me the money and I'll stab him as he stands pissing against the wall.
04:21Where is he? He's now in London at Aldersgate Street.
04:25He's as dead as if he had been condemned by Act of Parliament if once Blackwill and I swear his death.
04:30In this turbulent tempest of sex and passion,
04:34love's true course can scarce run smooth.
04:36Thrill to the fate of these two, damn the creatures!
04:40Alice!
04:41I pay thee, Mosley, let our springtime wither.
04:43Our harvest else will yield but loathsome weeds.
04:47Forget, I pray you, what has passed between us,
04:50for now I blush and tremble at the thought.
04:53What, are you changed?
04:55Aye, to my former happy state again.
04:58From title of an odious trumpet's name
05:01To honest Arden's wife,
05:04Not Arden's honest wife.
05:08Even in my forehead is thy name engraven,
05:11That mean artificer, that low-born name.
05:14Nay, if you can curse, let me breathe curses forth.
05:16I left the marriage of an honest maid,
05:18Whose dowry would have weighed down all thy wealth.
05:20But now the rain hath beaten off thy guilt,
05:22Thy worthless copper shows thee counterfeit.
05:25Go, get thee gone!
05:26A copse made for thy hinds,
05:28I'm too good to be thy favourite.
05:31Nay, Mosby, hear me speak a word or two,
05:34Or I'll bite my tongue if it speak bitterly.
05:38Look on me, Mosby, or I'll kill myself.
05:43Sweet Mosby is as gentle as a king,
05:46And I too blind to judge him otherwise.
05:50Flowers do sometimes grow in fallow lands,
05:53Weeds in gardens, roses grow on thorns.
05:57So whatsoe'er my Mosby's father was,
06:00Himself is valued gentle for his work.
06:04Oh, how you women can insinuate and clear a trespass
06:07With your sweet-set tongue.
06:09I'll forget this quarrel, gentle Alice,
06:11Provided I be tempted so no more.
06:13Then with thy lips seal up this new-made match.
06:20Hark! Somebody comes!
06:23Shudder at the dreadful murder which unties this tangled knot
06:26Of greed and passion.
06:27Mosby!
06:28Malice!
06:29What will you do?
06:30Nothing but take you up, sir, nothing else.
06:31Here's for the pressing iron you told me up!
06:34And here's for the ten pounds in my sleep.
06:38What?
06:39Growns thou?
06:40Give him the weapon.
06:41Take this for hindering Mosby's love of mine.
06:47The most suspenseful drama ever staged.
06:50Mistress!
06:51Mistress!
06:52Mistress, the guests are at the door after they knock.
06:54What shall I let them in?
06:55Musby, go thou and keep them company.
06:58Susan, fetch water and wash away this blood.
07:01Oh, mistress!
07:03Oh, mistress!
07:06The blood cleaveth to the ground and will not out.
07:09Oh, but with my nails I'll scrape away the blood.
07:12Oh, the more I strive, the more the blood appears.
07:15Oh, what's the reason, mistress, can you tell?
07:17Because I blush not at my husband's death.
07:20You chew your fingers to the toenails.
07:22Oh, mistress!
07:23Mistress, the mare and the watch are coming towards our house with gloves and swords.
07:27Let them go fast.
07:28Let them not come in.
07:29Yes.
07:30Quick!
07:31Hark!
07:32They knock!
07:33Hark!
07:34They knock!
07:43Now, Susan, let them in.
07:54How now, Master Mayor, have you brought my husband home?
07:58Arden, thy husband and my friend is slain.
08:02Ah!
08:03By whom, Master Mayor, can you tell?
08:05Nay, I know not.
08:06But behind the abbey there he lies murdered in most piteous case.
08:09But, Master Mayor, are you sure it is, eh?
08:11I am too sure.
08:12Would God were our wives.
08:14Find out the murderers.
08:15Let them be known.
08:16Aye, so we shall.
08:17Come you along with us.
08:18Wherefore?
08:19Know you this hand towel and this knife?
08:22It is the pig's blood that we had to suffer.
08:25Proper.
08:26Wherefore stay you?
08:27Find the murderers out.
08:28I fear me you'll prove one of them yourself.
08:30Aye, one of them?
08:31What mean this question?
08:32I fear me he was murdered in this house and carried to the fields.
08:35For, from that place, backwards and forwards, may you see the print of many footsteps in the snow.
08:42Look, run this chamber where we are and you shall find part of his guiltless blood.
08:46Look, in the chair where he was wont to sit.
08:50See, see, his blood.
08:52It is too manifest.
08:54It is a cup of wine that Susan shed.
08:57Aye, truly.
08:58It is his blood which trumpet thou hast shed.
09:01And if I live, thou and thy captives, which have contrived and wrought his death, shall ruin it.
09:07Tremble to the terrible resolution of these wicked lovers.
09:11See them glory in their naked, sexual passion.
09:14You will never forget the searing story of Aden of Favisham.
09:19All next week with full supporting programme.
09:22All this is aimed finally at our new theatre in the Barbican, which is going to have 1,500 seats and I hope enough cheap seats for people to make a regular habit of dropping in.
09:43And it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom.
09:59Shakespeare was an actor as well as a playwright.
10:02And by using a speech in Hamlet to a group of travelling players not unlike ourselves,
10:07is able to give actors a few pertinent words of advice,
10:10in no way different to the sort of notes we get from our director after every performance.
10:15And it always goes something like this.
10:18Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you trippingly on the tongue.
10:24But if you mouth it, as many of your players do.
10:29I had a sleep the town crier spoke my lines.
10:32Nor do not soar the air too much with your hand thus.
10:36But use all gently.
10:41Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwigged, pated fellow tear a passion to tatters,
10:49to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,
10:54who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows at noise.
10:59Now be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor.
11:06And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them.
11:12That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
11:18Suit the word to the action, and the action to the word, with this special observance.
11:27That you are step not the modesty of nature.
11:31For anything so overdone is from the purpose of play,
11:36Whose end, both at the first and now, was and is.
11:44To hold as twere the mirror up to nature,
11:49To show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,
11:54And the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
12:00To be continued.
12:01To be continued.
12:02To be continued.
12:03To be continued.
