Shakespeare's First Folio marks 400 years, Bard's portrait sent to edge of space

Record ID: 1750428

  • Title: Shakespeare's First Folio marks 400 years, Bard's portrait sent to edge of space
  • Date: 7th November 2023
  • Summary: GREATER LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (NOVEMBER 3, 2023) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) FILMMAKER, JACK JEWERS, SAYING: “People all too often can kind of get too intimidated by his language. But actually, once you get past that, the themes that he is exploring his drama are every bit as gripping and relevant to our everyday lives as something we watch on TV today. And k
  • Embargoed: 21st November 2023 12:33
  • Keywords: 1623 First Folio Shakespeare's First Folio William Shakespeare
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: UK
  • Topics: Books,Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe
  • Reuters ID: LVA001531103112023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Wednesday (November 8) will mark 400 years since the first volume of playwright William Shakespeare's works was published.
    Shakespeare's First Folio was compiled by his friends and published on November 8, 1623, seven years after his death. Some 750 copies are believed to have been printed, containing 36 of the 37 plays Shakespeare wrote, arranged for the first time as comedies, tragedies and histories.
    The First Folio is considered as one of the most important books in English literature. Without it, 18 plays, including "Macbeth", would have been lost.
    "(Shakespeare's) fellow actors, theatre company owners, decided to pull that material together and produce the kind of testament to their former colleague, to the greatest playwright that they had certainly ever worked with," said Will Tosh, head of research at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London.
    "And as it turned out, the greatest playwright in the English language."
    To mark the anniversary, filmmaker Jack Jewers sent a portrait of Shakespeare and a copy of a speech from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to the edge of space.
    The short film is one of six he made addressing contemporary themes including space exploration, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine using six of Shakespeare’s speeches and poems.
    In "Lovers and Madmen" narrated by actor Tom Baker, he attached the portrait and text to a weather balloon, sending them to the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
    "A tiny copy of the speech we used, which is 'The Lovers and Madmen' speech from 'Midsummer Night's Dream' (was) inserted into the portrait," Jewers told Reuters.
    "I like the idea of Shakespeare's words floating in space along with his image."
    "The Stranger's Case" features a speech Shakespeare contributed to an unperformed play alongside footage of refugees at sea.
    “What really struck me when I was kind of doing a deep dive into the bits of his work that I wanted to focus on was how the issues he wrote about still felt so contemporary," Jewers said.
    "'The Stranger’s Case' (speech)...feels so modern that whenever anybody hears this, they go ‘well, this could be today’."
    Jewers' films will be screened on Wednesday (November 8) at St Martin in the Fields London.
    “People all too often can kind of get too intimidated by (Shakespeare's) language. But actually, once you get past that, the themes that he is exploring his drama are every bit as gripping and relevant to our everyday lives as something we watch on TV today," Jewers said.
    "And key to that is the accessibility, the fact that it is open to everybody. And none of that would have happened if people who knew him and loved him and worked with him had not saved and collated his work and published it for anybody to buy in this wonderful volume we call the First Folio.”
    (Production: Will Russell, Marie-Louise Gumuchian)
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register