After a little sleep in, we met Giles Block (head of text).

I think it is the text that people either love or hate about Shakespeare. Love, because it is amazing. Hate, because it’s more difficult to understand. Giles was wonderful in giving us a few pointers that make it easier to both understand and speak Shakespeare’s text. A few little things like: ‘not’ should not be emphasized, the verb before should be. Stress words that are important and help convey meaning. Commas are generally a signal that indicates the previous word’s importance.

One piece of advice that I found particularly helpful was the way Giles discussed the rhythms. There is the wonderful iambic pentameter, but also others. Giles’ key point on rhythm is whatever feels natural and makes the most sense out of the text.

In the heat of the afternoon we went to see King Lear. I now understand how and why people faint in the matinee performances. I was wondering whether a tradegy would be different on stage to a comedy. Apart from the obvious (funny vs. tragic), it was relatively similar. I did really like the way the space was used. At some points there were characters in the yard which really emphasized that feeling of being part of the performance.