much ado about newsletters
“I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.”
Hiiii,
Yes, I’ve become one of those annoying people who put way too many ‘ii’s’ in my hi. But in my head, it sounds like I’m very excited to talk to you. And I am, so that’s what I’m trying to get across.
Wednesday crept up on me this week (blame the damn public holiday on Monday) so I woke up this morning and realised shit I hadn’t finished this week’s newsletter. But I like the thrill of procrastinating so I still wrote it all out, and there might be MANY errors. But please forgive me.
can I talk about Shakespeare for a little bit?
I promise I won’t bore you.
My nephews are in matric this year and I saw an Othello book lying on the one’s bed and I feel like I had war flashbacks. Ugh, Desdemona, ugh Iago.
(me at Shakespeare’s Globe)
And even though many of Shakespeare’s tragedies still remind me of school and varsity, his comedies really do have a special place in my heart.
From A Midsummer’s Night Dream to As You Like It, I have realised that I have enjoyed these far more once I’ve seen it live. Which TBH is how I feel about most Shakespeare productions, once you get into it, it really is good storytelling, and if the production is good, the actors will do an even better job of selling it to you.
(Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in Much Ado About Nothing)
My favourite, however, is Much Ado About Nothing, which strangely we did as a setwork book in grade 10 and I still love it. Luckily for us, it was the play at Maynardville’s Shakespeare in the Park as well, and I got to watch it live, and I fell even more in love with it.
Much Ado About Nothing is basically a witty romcom, and as Chloe on Too Hot To Handle said, ‘all about the banter.’ Two people who are constantly bickering fall in love and you believe it. It’s the precursor to Pride and Prejudice to When Harry Met Sally to Pillow Talk, and you know how much I love all of these. So give Mr Shakespeare his flowers, he might have caused us to stress over matric exams but this uncle surely gave us one of the greatest romcom tropes.
This great article by Caroline Siede for AV Club, really breaks down the play, the adaptations and where you can watch all the different versions.
What was your favourite Shakespeare plays? Are you a fan of the adaptations like 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s The Man. Holler at me in the comments, I might write another newsletter about my favourite teen adaptations.
other things that are on my mind this week:
I binge-watched Dollface, which was hilarious and made me realise how underutilized Shay Mitchell was on Pretty Little Liars. You can read my review on Channel24 here (also subscribe to News24 for R75 a month).
There has been a whole lot of conversation and criticism about Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s song, ‘WAP’ but all of that is nonsense, this video is HOT and fun. Men don’t like us to have nice things.
I’ve also recently come across the music of Manu Grace, which sounds dreamy and lovely, and exactly my kinda vibe.
crushing on
This week on the podcast I was joined by Zayaan Schroeder Mollagee, who is a film and TV reviewer at Channel24, but also a parenting writer and blogger. She is the creator of the blog Up The Faraway Tree, which writes about and reviews content for children, it’s really good and worth it to check out. In the ep we chatted about why she banned Peppa Pig in her house, the crazy storylines on Teen Wolf, and what we loved when we were kids. Listen to the episode here.
