Tryst with the Bard

As the world celebrates the Bard’s 450th my own close encounters with the most popular poet and dramatist of all times.

As early as at high school I had a brush with “As You Like It”, prescribed as part of syllabus.

Who can forget the charming Rosalind or her devoted beau Orlando?

My romancing with the Bard continued on to plus twelve level wherein I chose to enact the disturbing sleepwalking scene of Lady Macbeth.

All the waters would not clean the ‘damned spot’ off my hands and for days on end my head was not cleared of the powerful dialogue!

At yet another occasion I rendered Mark Anthony’s famous speech, the finest example in rhetoric, which left me and the audience trembling with emotion.

To own the complete works of the inimitable Bard became my cherished dream.

It was last summer that along with my husband and daughter I got the occasion to set foot on the soil of the lovable writers with whose works I had grown up, and enjoy till date-Enid Blyton, Wordsworth, William Shakespeare, Sir Authur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie-to cite but a few.

Apart from the normal must-sees of London, in the limited span of time each one of us had some special desires to catch up with.

Mine was no doubt a visit to 221B Baker’s Street as also the famous Globe. A serpentine queue along the entire length of the former did not deter us.

The wait itself sent up a shiver of excitement through my spine. I almost expected Sherlock Holmes to be looking out of his famed window.

His hat and coat were for us to don and pose! The museum dedicated to a figure of fiction is to be seen to be believed.

We reached Shakespeare’s Globe theatre next. Apart from the ‘yard’, which entitled one to stand and watch, and cost 5 pounds, the only tickets to be had were the central gallery ones costing a whopping 39 pounds each.

Available were two, so we decided on one ticket and two persons to wait outside in the new city. The play was ‘The Tempest’ and the show was on the next evening. It was the 23rd of April, adding to the thrill!

The next evening after losing our way initially we finally reached the venue.

I hurried inside only to be told that it was fifteen minutes to interval!  The ‘yard’ was open to the skies and scores of people were standing there enjoying the play oblivious of any discomfort.

The joyous tap dance-somewhat akin to a victory lap-towards the end, by all the characters of the play comes to my inward eye whenever I please, a la Wordsworth, and I get carried away to the Globe yet again!