We really are ladies who lunch! Now, we’re on holiday in Stratford, a nice posh place where only madams really go. Tilly and I went with Mummy (I don’t quite know how we’d go on by ourselves, indeed), and Katie, our friend, and Chris, her mum. We’ve only gone for one night because we went mainly for a Shakespeare workshop, for William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Gracie came to the workshop too, but then she had to rush off to pick her sisters up from school. It was very fun, and we learnt all about Shakespeare’s life in school, at home, and mainly his playwright job.
We knew quite a bit about William already, but we did learn a lot whilst we were there. They did a first talk about Shakespeare himself for an hour, and then they did another one all about Romeo and Juliet, one of his plays, for another hour. I hadn’t read much about the Romeo and Juliet play, however, but I understood what was going on even though it was key stage three and ,oI hadn’t learnt about the main subject. The first lady, whose name I cannot remember, was very good and she let us understand everything.
The lady gave us a brilliant lecture. She talked about where he was born in Stratford, and where he went to school; when he became a playwright, and when he made his most famous plays; she talked about what it was like at the theatre, and if the people behaved; and she gave us lots of long opportunities to fill in what we thought were the answers. It was all home-educated people, and we were all very interested in what she was saying.
William, as I have said, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. We went down to his birthplace shortly after lunch. I’ll talk about that later. He went to school there, too, and we saw the room he was taught in through the little windows, with its bent roof and the little wooden desks he would have really sat at, leaning over his parchment and delicately writing with his fountain feather pen. I would have loved to be him – sitting and writing, writing, writing. All day, adding note here, letter there; and reading his play through over and over, and getting it published, and seeing it being performed on stage. It must have been rather stressful though, to think about it, bending over your paper for hours on end…
The second lady was nice too. She talked all about Romeo and Juliet, and how it was written. She got actors to act out the play, and they had to learn a lot of lines to remember! The actors were the storyteller, or the chorus, Juliet, Romeo, and Nursie – or sweet Nurse, darling Nurse, or honey-Nurse, to Juliet – and they were very good, especially Juliet. She would stomp around a lot and had beautiful expressions. She and the others acted it really well, and remembered all their lines – “Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” – and then Romeo was good too – “For I ne’er saw true beauty until this night.” – and so was everyone else. Nursie was brilliant she did such good talking and that sort of thing.
Now I’ll talk about Shakespeare’s Birthplace. At the beginning there was a sort of mini museum, where there was the first folio. The first folio was where all Shakespeare’s friends put together his abandoned plays in a big book. If his friends hadn’t done that, we would not have got many plays from him, because there were so many that he had list. The book is now kept in a secured glass cabinet, so nobody can touch it. There were lots of Shakespeare’s quotes pasted on the walls, or read out in films.
Once you had finished the museum-y part, there was the house that he was born in. It was very Tudor, made of wattle-and-dorb. It was all quaint and tiny and there were little rooms and big rooms, and all the pots were of wood or china, and the windows were glass. Outside there was the garden, which was really lovely, all flowers and vines. There was a man reciting Shakespearean poems, too, on the stage by the flowers.
Then there was Shakespeare’s sister Susanna’s house. She was married to a very rich doctor, John. They had glass windows again, proper sheets of thick glass, and wooden beams that were super expensive. There was a room with John’s book of potions called ‘Medical Theories’, which he needed to whizz up his Tudor remedies. They were probably a bit horrible! They had a huge, huge garden, which was a brilliant grassy field edged with roses and little wooden benches. It was lovely!
We went back to the Travelodge where we stayed overnight. The bathroom was really quite filthy but apart from that it was great. It was located through the Reception and up the stairs, through a couple of Quiet if You’re up Late doors and double loop back past the corridor and past a load of Private and Staff Only rooms. Then you return to a Stairs: Disabled Warning sign and through the last door and there! Reception, stairs, Quiet if You’re up Late, Quiet if You’re up Late, double loop, corridor, Private, Private, Staff Only, Staff Only, Staff Only, Stairs: Disabled Warning, last door, done. It’s quite easy once you’ve done it lots!
