This one actually gives more of an indication as to what events they are going to be taking on in Season 3 – namely the Pilgrimage of Grace and the fall of Cromwell (whom I guess will be the big “head chop” of this season).
Month: March 2009
More on Shakespeare’s ‘First Theater’
This is an update to a story that I blogged about last summer:
From the BBC:
A team from the Museum of London found the remains of what they believe is also Britain’s first purpose built theatre in Shoreditch last summer.
Built in 1576, it is thought the Bard acted there and that it also hosted the premiere of Romeo and Juliet.
The site is now owned by the Tower Theatre Company and a new playhouse is due to open there in 2012.
Taryn Nixon, from the Museum of London, said her team had found part of the original curved wall of the playhouse, which was believed to be polygonal in shape.
A metre and a half below street level, it has also uncovered the gravel surface, gently sloping down towards the stage, where the bulk of the audience would have stood.
But the archaeologists fear the stage itself may be buried underneath a housing development.
Full article (with a short video that has a nice overview of the site)
Two possible new views of The Bard
First up, from The Times Online:
Is this the real Shakespeare at last?
A PORTRAIT owned for nearly 300 years by a family will tomorrow be claimed as the only known picture of William Shakespeare painted during his lifetime.
No other image, executed at first hand, is thought to exist of Britain
Picture of the Week #9
Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England. May 1998.
Glastonbury’s first stone church dates to the 8th century, but it was demolished and rebuilt in Norman times. Building and expansion continued through the early 16th century, including a special apartment on the Abbot’s House built for a visit by Henry VII. The Abbey met its end in 1539 during the Dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII.
This photograph is one of my favorites from my first trip to the UK, and it happened totally by accident. I was getting near the end of my roll of film (yes, film – this was 1998) so I sat down on a little rise under a tree along the path to change out the roll. I saw I had a couple of shots left, so I just took a photo of the view in front of me, which is the photo you see above.
Creative Spaces – Museum social networking
I got an email about this yesterday (thanks again Tom!) and here is a BBC article about the new service (currently in beta testing):
A group of the UK’s most famous museums, including the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, is creating a collective website.
As well as finding information about exhibits, museum lovers can use the website to create communities based on their historic and creative interests.
The National Museums Online Learning project is to be launched this week.
The
Next live blog/read-along book!
Going on the past successes of the Henry: Virtuous Prince and The Sisters Who Would Be Queen threads, here’s the next one!
When I posted about Derek Wilson’s new book A Brief History of Henry VIII, PhD Historian generously offered to do a “blog as you read” for this one. Since this book is inexpensive, this would be a good one to also do as a read-along for anyone who is interested. It is currently listed as “dispatched in 1 to 3 weeks” by Amazon UK and is “In Stock” at Amazon US (although the release date is technically March 9). And full disclosure, if you order through the links on the post above, it goes to my affiliate store and I get a small portion of the sale, which goes towards paying for web hosting and research books.
