Black Victorians - Shakespearean Actor Ira Aldridge

Ira Aldridge was born in New York, but spent most of his career as an actor on stage in England and Europe, especially in Shakespearean roles. When he arrived in Liverpool in 1824, with another black actor, James Wallack, England had only recently outlawed the slave trade.
One of his early reviews, from the Times, was less than complimentary - the reporter said that he had "lips so shaped that it is utterly impossible for him to pronounce English". But he went on to play Othello - and also various white characters, for which he "whited up" with greasepaint and wigs, playing Shylock, Richard III and Macbeth and, later in his career, Lear.
He also toured Europe, with success in Germany, and performances in Russia, Serbia and Budapest.
Four of his children with his second wife went on to have musical careers. The two girls, Irene and Amanda, became opera singers. Amanda also gave elecution lessons to Paul Robeson in 1930 when he was preparing to play Othello in London.
Ira died in 1867, while visiting Poland, and is buried in Lodz, where he was given a state funeral. He was quickly forgotten in Britain, but remained a source of inspiration to African American actors. He is one of 33 actors honoured with a bronze plaque at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and the only African American.

Shakespeare and Star Trek

It's the Hay Festival, and all sorts of interesting people are coming into town - and buying books.
One lady bought a stack of Star Trek novels, because she's about to do an MA on Shakespeare and Star Trek. The links go right back to the original series, with the episode The Conscience of the King. The plot was loosely based on Hamlet, and the play within the play which was intended to uncover King Claudius' guilt. In the case of the Star Trek episode, it was the leader of the players who was the guilty party, being the dictator of a planet who had disappeared after a genocidal reign twenty years before.
Jean-Luc Picard, of course, was always quoting Shakespeare - and I seem to remember a scene where Data was enacting a scene from Henry V with him.
So there's plenty of material to deal with for an MA.

Richard Briers in Shakespeare

The summer I got married, Kenneth Branagh was touring Britain with his Shakespeare theatre company. They were due to come to Norwich just after our wedding, so part of our celebration was to go and see A Midsummer Night's Dream and King Lear on consecutive nights. Because the theatre in Norwich was being refurbished at the time, they were doing it in a tent in one of the parks.
So we got the pre-play speech each night by Kenneth Branagh explaining why there was no scenery - when they'd measured up in the spring, it would have fit in the tent, but since then the tent had sunk several inches into the mud, and the scenery was now too big to fit!
In The Dream, Richard Briers played Bottom. He was brilliant, of course - it was the sort of role he could do with his eyes closed.
The following night, he played King Lear - and it was a revelation! This wasn't a light comic actor, famous as Tom Good and as a panto villain in Doctor Who's Paradise Towers! This was an actor of the stature of the other greats who have played Lear. Coming the day after we'd seen him play Bottom made it all the more impressive.
Maybe it was partly the live performance, but I thought he was far better than Laurence Olivier in the BBC TV version of the play - and Emma Thompson twisted herself into grotesque shapes as the Fool and was likewise awesome. We staggered out of that tent with our jaws on the floor!
Kenneth Branagh also cast him in several Shakespeare films, and I've enjoyed his performances in Much Ado About Nothing, acting with Brian Blessed, and as Polonius in Hamlet. I remember seeing an interview with him where he confessed to being really nervous while acting opposite Gerard Depardieu and saying that he always ended up speaking very fast because of his nerves!
So, while I'll always watch a re-run of The Good Life - it's the Shakespeare that I'll really remember Richard Briers for.