So I'm on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, which is a road on which you can find various street performers and people promoting the various plays and shows they are doing. Its an interesting place that has involved me scaring the hell out of random people with my joker like visage and my Harley Quin companion(the lovely and slightly scary Helen ); Conversly it's a also a place where I've made a lot of new friends and collected an inordinate amount of hugs.
Anywhere I'm talking to a family trying to get them to come and see one of the Shakespeare productions I'm in (the vaguely kiddy friendly one) and the little boy in the family asks the question
"Who's Shakespeare?"
I look at him and ask him the most obvious question I could think of , "Do you like Dr Who?"
"Yes," he says
"Well," say I "Do you remember the man the Dr met in the episode with the Carrionites who used to write lots of stories."
"Yes, but I didn't watch it all because the witches scared me so had to turn it off"
"Fair enough," I said in agreement " they were pretty ugly...but the man who wrote the stories was a real a man whose stories were really good and we still read today".
So, a triumph for science fiction as thanks to Dr Who I was able to educate a young lad to the best selling writer in history.
This is one of the reasons I get riled when people say "its just a kids show" - Kids shows shape the minds of our young, conciously or subconciously and should not be underestimated. For some it is the kind of shaping that can help decide future careers and in this case was the genesis of an education in the classics.
2 comments:
And as Dr Who himself said about Shakespeare, 'He is the most human human to have ever lived' :-) xx
man, you are looking like you are having a blast! wish i could come see it. you're making me miss my acting days. especially shakespeare. keep rockin it!
Post a Comment