Shakespeare was christened on April 26th, 1564, four and a half centuries ago. To mark his birth — traditionally set on St George’s Day, feast day of England’s patron saint, though his actual birthday is not known — Lizzie Ross and I will be looking at one of his more obscure plays, The Tragedie of Cymbeline, act by act until we get to April 26th. We tweeted a similar dialogue with our views on the graphic novel Watchmen.
According to IMDb a modern version of Cymbeline is due to be released as a film this year, set in New York and starring Ed Harris, Dakota Johson, Ethan Hawke and Milla Jovovich among others. This will be a far cry from either Iron Age Britain, when Cunobelinus ruled from Camulodunum — now Colchester in Essex — or from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s chronicle The History of the Kings of Britain, which in turn supplied Cymbeline as a fantasy character to later inspire Shakespeare via Holinshed’s Chronicles.
But despite the title, this is not primarily a tale about the king — as we will no doubt see.
Calmgrove 
I suppose we’ll have to blog about the film upon its release. “Bikers” — that is a term that piques my curiosity.
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yes, ‘bikers’ puzzled me too!
That reminds me: finally got to see Watchmen film before Christmas and meant to add comment on your review — seasonal festivities got in the way — but I’ll do that soon.
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You’ve made me want to reread our Watchmen work!
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I’m sure there’ll be Shakespearean dimensions to Watchmen!
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Excellent, Chris and Lizzie – I’ll be looking forward to this!
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Kate, it’s begun, Lizzie has already kicked it off!
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What fun! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the play. it is not one I have studies extensively so once again Chris, you’ll will no doubt teach me something new.
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Can’t guarantee to say anything new about it, Sari, but it’ll certainly be fun posting in tandem with Lizzie!
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