The Guardian has been releasing what they’ve been calling “Shakespeare Solos” — short films of soliloquies and set speeches from the Bard, recited by British actors. The releases run the gamut from the so-famous-it-borders-on-cliche (Adrian Lester doing Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ and David Morrissey with Richard III’s ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’) to the less expected (Camille O’Sullivan’s ‘Thou art not holy’ from King John, and the wonderful ‘Are you meditating on virginity?’ from All’s Well That Ends Well by Sacha Dhawan).
Why do I mention this?
Well, one of the first batch of 6 contains Roger Allam doing King Lear’s ‘Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks’ speech. Allam, a veteran of the London stage and both Shakespeare’s Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company, takes a subtle approach to the speech.
Good stuff.