‘Here’s eight that must take hands’: Celebrating The Show Must Go Online’s First Folio series
by Gemma Allred & Ben Broadribb
Ben Jonson famously said in his dedication to the First Folio that Shakespeare ‘was not of an age, but for all time’. Whether you agree or not, 2020 has proven that, in a time of crisis, uncertainty and introspection, creatives will turn to Shakespeare time and again to find meaning, hope, community — find something, whatever that something might be that they need. Perhaps the clearest example of this, and certainly one of if not the first when it comes to lockdown Shakespeare, is Rob Myles’s online series The Show Must Go Online (TSMGO).
On 13th March 2020, Myles tweeted about ‘[setting] up an online #Shakespeare play-reading group via Zoom or similar’, asking: ‘Anyone interested?’. It’s fair to say that people were indeed interested. The project became a mission to read every play included in the First Folio in the order they’re believed to have been written. The first edition of TSMGO — The Two Gentlemen of Verona — went out live on Myles’s YouTube channel on 19th March, four days before the UK’s first full national lockdown began. Eight months, thirty-six plays (sorry, Pericles and Two Noble Kinsmen), numerous specials, and hundreds of actors, creatives and ‘digital groundlings’ later, TSMGO has blossomed from Myles’s original idea of an ‘online #Shakespeare play-reading group’ to pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved through online performance. Whilst TSMGO feels very much ‘of an age’ — born out of and inherently influenced by the mood and aesthetic of 2020 — Myles and all involved certainly intend the series to be ‘for all time’, emphasising that the series will be on YouTube, in Myles’s words, ‘for everyone, for free, forever’.
In celebration of the conclusion of TSMGO’s First Folio marathon in November with grand finale The Tempest, and in anticipation of its return in December with a special Shakespearean adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, we’ve pulled together a list of eight picks from across the eight months the series ran for this year. We’ve given reasons for each of our choices, with our aim being to show just how much the project has progressed, expanded and innovated across the series.
Titus Andronicus (22nd April 2020)
Myles had five productions under his belt by the time he reached Shakespeare’s notoriously bloody and brutal Roman tragedy, with costumes and props tentatively creeping in more and more over the course of those early shows. But Titus Andronicus is arguably the point that TSGMO clearly made the move from the director’s original idea of online play-readings through Zoom to putting on a theatrical adaptation of a Shakespeare play live once a week. Myles’s Titus had a clear aesthetic influenced by early Tarantino, with characters wearing black suits and brandishing firearms rather than Roman attire and weaponry. The juxtaposition of modern dress with Shakespearean language was also reminiscent of Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996). This was a big step for both TSMGO and Myles as series creator, taking directorial authority more than he had prior to this point — something he would return to more regularly as the series progressed.
Pop Shakespeare series (4th, 11th, 18th and 25th May 2020)
We’re being slightly cheeky by counting four productions together, but as each show in the Pop Shakespeare series is only an hour long, we’re allowing ourselves a little indulgence! Throughout May, in addition to performing a Shakespeare play in full every Wednesday, TSMGO also performed a second show every Monday night in partnership with publisher Quirk Books. This series offered four abridged versions of Ian Doescher’s ‘Pop Shakespeare’ books, which retell movies in Shakespearean style. The first — William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, directed by Myles — was performed appropriately enough on ‘Star Wars Day’ (May the fourth), followed by performances of The Taming of the Clueless, Much Ado About Mean Girls, and Get Thee Back To The Future!, directed by Alex Pearson, Emily Ingram and Sarah Peachey respectively. TSMGO’s lockdown aesthetic and Doescher’s sharp scripts felt well-matched from the first moments of Star Wars, complete with Doescher himself ‘playing’ the opening crawl as Ben noted in his analysis of the production. Whilst not part of the First Folio series, the Pop Shakespeare productions helped to shape the playful, low-tech aesthetic of TSMGO as a project — the impact was most keenly felt in Myles’s espionage-themed Much Ado About Nothing in July, which referenced James Bond, Mission: Impossible and more. December’s production of A Christmas Carol will mark the continuation of the TSMGO-Doescher partnership, making it a Shakespop-Dickens mashup you won’t want to miss!
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (3rd June 2020)
Performing the plays of the First Folio in the order they’re thought to have been written meant that TSMGO mostly spent its first couple of months adapting the histories interspersed with Shakespeare’s early comedies. This essentially limited Myles in terms of the worlds he was able to craft on Zoom when creating adaptations faithful to Shakespeare’s texts. Following the Tarantino-style Titus and Pop Shakespeare series, however, Dream gave Myles the opportunity to apply the creativity shown in crafting cinematic worlds to a Shakespearean original with distinct realistic and fantastical realms. As Ben explored in his series of articles on Lockdown Dreams earlier this year, the play’s magical elements in particular gave Myles the chance to get creative and experiment with what is possible on Zoom — for example, using green screen functionality to make Puck (Katrina Allen) and Oberon (Andrew Mockley) invisible and applying a camera filter to replace Bottom’s (Myles) head with that of Donkey from Shrek. Compared to the series’ technical achievements in later productions (some of which will be discussed further on in this article), these might now seem like straightforward additions. Less than three months into the project and the life of Zoom theatre more widely, however, this was a significant stage in TSMGO’s evolution beyond offering staged play-readings to something much more cinematic in its approach to Shakespeare.
Hamlet (12th August 2020)
An all-star alumni cast convened for arguably (please don’t actually argue) Shakespeare’s best known and most performed play. It is hard to do anything new with Hamlet, but the TSMGO team rose to the challenge. This was an energetic performance: focussing on the relationship between the living and the dead, the production drew on the Mexican tradition of Día de Muertos with Hamlet’s ‘antic disposition’ (Hamlet, 1.5.170) taking the form of La Catrina make up. Kristen Atherton’s Hamlet was energetic and motivated, close-cropped framing adding intensity to her emotional yet rational performance.
This Hamlet was not mad, but knowingly and manipulatively drawing a connection between the living and the dead — the murdered and the murderer. In a play that can meander (let’s be honest, not much happens until the mass killing of the final scene), the cultural signifier of the Mexican tradition kept the murder of Old Hamlet (Miguel Pérez) in sharp focus. Atherton removing her make-up during ‘To be, or not to be’ (3.1.55) was an inspired choice. Presenting much of the soliloquy with a half-painted face brought to the fore the questions of mortality inherent in the speech — the line between the dead the the living made clear. The motif continued into the confession scene of 3.3, where Zoom trickery offered a vision of the alternate path where Hamlet seizes the moment and takes revenge.
With Hamlet very much in control of the action, the production was a darker take on the classic than some — absent, for example, was the manic, comedic madness of the 2008–09 Tennant/Doran production. Atherton’s Hamlet replaced the controlled La Catrina make-up steeped in symbolism for a less controlled splatter of blood across her cheek as she hid Polonius’s body — again, the lines between living and dead brought clearly to the fore. Within the context of this darker production, the comic relief of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, ably handled by Maryam Grace and Robbie Capaldi respectively (and, unusually for Zoom Theatre, acting in the same physical space), made sense. Their drinks-cabinet-emptying antics rear of stage and increasingly elaborate outfits offered moments of levity, as too did the gratuitous inclusion of pirates in the style of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow (Victoria Rae Sook and Dominic Brewer).
Timon of Athens (30th September 2020)
Involved with the project in an advisory capacity since Two Gentlemen of Verona as well as organising the guest speaker for each show, Ben Crystal finally stepped in front of the camera as a performer at the end of TSMGO’s sixth month. Taking on the title role in Timon of Athens, Crystal took the opportunity to use one of Shakespeare’s least performed (and arguably least loved — but again, please don’t argue) plays to explore Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation (OP). More than just performing Timon in OP, Crystal worked the choice into his characterisation of the Athenian gentleman. As Timon cursed the walls of Athens — ably performed by Crystal’s own garden wall — and shed the smart suit that represented his former wealth and the excesses of the city at the beginning of 4.1, so too Crystal began the shift from his modern accent to OP. Myles as director made the smart choice to place the interval at this point, creating a clear distinction between Timon’s former Athenian life and his hermitry in the woods, as well as giving Crystal the opportunity to complete his transformation through donning a dishevelled jumper and mud-daubed face. As a result, Timon became both one of the most academically rich productions in the TSMGO canon, and a prime example of how to incorporate distinct performance choices into a production in a way that enhances the overall adaptation rather than feeling obstinately imposed upon it. Opting to offer the two modes of pronunciation side by side, as Crystal alone moved into OP, provided a rich educational resource. With a Shakespearean A-list introduction from Simon Russell Beale focussing on his professional stage experience in the title role of this obscure play, Myles’s production is a gift to educators and students alike.
Macbeth (7th October 2020)
With an all women and non-binary cast, Macbeth pushed against the clichéd evil woman trope of an oversexualised Lady Macbeth manipulating her poor, misunderstood husband. Avoiding clichéd displays of masculinity, a powerful cast refocussed the play on displays of emotion rather than violence. Katrina Allen’s Lady Macbeth was the equal of Maryam Grace’s Macbeth, and both characters were afforded the space to grieve the implied recent loss of an infant and infertility. As Gemma has previously examined, freed from the shackles of gender stereotypes, the play allowed fathers to grieve absent sons and afforded a glimpse of an alternate narrative where calm negotiation could have avoided the ultimate bloodbath. It was a parallel reality briefly seen once again as a parting gift in TSMGO’s finale The Tempest, where the Macbeths — now a smiling husband and wife with a baby — joined in the poignant ring pass between numerous Shakespearean couples from throughout TSMGO’s back catalogue. It was not just the Macbeths that benefited from this sensitive treatment, as the witches too were released from restrictive stereotypes. With elaborate, ethereal make-up, the witches were closer to the doting fairies of Dream and the diligent spirit of The Tempest’s Ariel than the withered hags they are all too often portrayed as. Far from being a chaotic force for evil, the globally dispersed supernatural trio (Dana Demsko, Rebecca Brincat and Jenny Lu) offered not prophecy but mirrors — showing Macbeth as he is rather than as he will be. A simple motif of an extinguished candle as lives were lost showed the witches not as active agents, but as caretakers and watch-women, carefully and tenderly noting the passage of life.
Antony & Cleopatra (14th October 2020)
Following their all-women and non-binary production of Macbeth, TSMGO continued its championing of diversity and progressivity through its production of Antony & Cleopatra, performed by an ‘all global majority’ cast. This once again demonstrated Myles’s approach to casting people to perform roles rather than specific ethnicities, genders or characteristics. As well as providing one of TSMGO’s strongest and most enjoyable productions, A&C also showcased the value of the paratextual elements of the series. The weekly guest introductions and post-show Q&As continually gave invaluable insights into the approach of Myles, his casts and production team in adapting and performing each play. Dr. Varsha Panjwani’s introduction for A&C situated the play within contemporary perspectives of both feminism and race studies, and the post-show Q&A extended this conversation to the cast and crew. Myles himself memorably addressed the way in which both Shakespeare’s work and classical history have been used both in the past and the present as tools to further right-wing agendas and narratives, passionately positioning his adaptation of A&C — and TSMGO more widely — as being openly and proudly allied with anti-fascism:
‘Misogyny and racism are essential components of fascism because they create outsiders, they create an other that can be pushed down in order for people to […] elevate themselves. We here [at The Show Must Go Online] say that Shakespeare is for everyone, and that means that there can’t be outsiders, and that means that this project is anti-fascist by its nature. The idea that anti-fascism is […] activist [and] extremist is ludicrous. Indiana Jones was anti-fascist — he punched them in the face — so we wanted to be Indiana Jones to the extent that we could be, and punch it in the face with this.’
Cymbeline (4th November 2020)
Cymbeline is a notoriously tricky play to stage: confused and meandering, its convoluted plot led Samuel Johnson to claim that the play’s ‘just sentiments, […] natural dialogues, and […]pleasing scenes’ were ‘[…]obtained at the expense of much incongruity’.¹ However, moving to Zoom freed Myles from needing to create a tangible, believeable world in which we can bounce between England, Wales and Italy in an instant and in which every surviving character, seredipitously, finds themselves in the same field in Wales at exactly the right time. And, as with Macbeth, playing the play as written rather than offering interpretation or attempting to resolve the play’s inherent incoherence created something exciting. Robbie Capaldi was the perfect Iachimo; faced with a strong and fearless Imogen (Gabrielle Sheppard), their exchanges sparked with electricity. Shot on multiple cameras, the bedchamber scene of 2.2 placed the audience in the uncomfortable position of being complicit in sexual assault: a willing observer to Iachimo’s display of male ego and sense of sexual entitlement. It was difficult viewing, not least for a loyal audience more used to seeing Capaldi cast not as the villain but as the comic relief. Kevin V. Smith as the Queen also offered a standout performance. Leaning into, and offering no apology for, Shakespeare’s incomplete depiction of King Cymbeline’s wife (she’s not even given a name) Smith’s Queen filmed solely in close crop was every bit Disney villain. His portrayal threw into sharp focus the misogynistic depiction of yet another of Shakespeare’s women reduced to a series of stereotypes and damned by her gender.
The Show Must Go Online returns on Saturday December 19th 2020 with A Christmas Carol Live. A new play by Ian Doescher that the company describes as: ‘A loving pastiche of both Dickens and Shakespeare, this classic Christmas story brings together beloved Shakespeare characters from across the canon to teach Scrooge a thing or two about what it means to be human in hard times’. Buy a ticket here to watch live at 7.00pm GMT 19th December (a recording will also be available for 48 hours after the live show).
Every production from TSMGO’s First Folio series and Pop Shakespeare series is available to watch free on YouTube here.
¹ cited in Muir, Kenneth (1961) Last Periods of Shakespeare, Racine, Ibsen. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press)
