Keely Hawes and James McAvoy pulled off respectable Macbeths. Their respective transitions from shrew to hysteric and big bark to serious bite were slow and metered and, well, fantastic.
(Also the music? Creep. Tastic.)
“A new view: is this the real Shaksepeare?”
What annoys me about the article accompanying the portrait is this:
Also, the story of the painting - known as the Cobbe portrait - once again raises questions about Shakespeare’s sexuality. Was he more than just good friends with the man who commissioned the painting, his patron the Earl of Southampton?
Does it really once again raise questions? What is the story of the Cobbe portrait? You can’t link to another Guardian article about it? Or even a Wikipedia article? Sure, I can do the grunt work, but you’re the one writing the story and waving this flag around, not me.
A one-sentence summary that gets the Cobbe story wrong would be better than bringing it up out of context, in the middle of the article, and leaving the gun unfired by Act 3.
Bah.
