Shakespeare: Staging the World - review

The Shakespeare: Staging the World exhibition at the British Museum boasts that the Bard is "Britain’s greatest cultural contribution to the world". After spending a couple of hours in the exhibition it would be difficult to disagree. Even for those who are not familiar with Shakespeare's (roughly) 38 plays and (about) 154 sonnets, there is a treasure trove of items resembling TFL’s lost property department if it were established in the late sixteenth century: toothpicks, rings, rapiers, forks and even a bear’s skull.

 

The exhibition highlights Southwark as one of the most sinful places in Britain; accessible only by boat (the single bridge connecting both sides of the river was too dangerous to cross), punters would travel across to the inns, theatres and bear-baiting rings for an evening of revelry.

 

Shakespeare grew up in the time of the birth of British theatre – purpose-built playhouses and professional playwrights thrived in a new age of creativity, and the exhibition shows how the playhouse informed, persuaded and provoked thought on the issues of the day. It was an arena for politics and free speech without consequence, and catered for all classes: from lowly peasants to courtesans and courtiers.

 

There are Francis Drake’s medals for circumnavigating the globe in 1580; and the eye of Gunpowder Plot member Edward Oldcorne, gouged out at his execution at Worcester in 1606, as well as rural and superstitous relics that influenced Shakespeare’s plays, for example a calf’s heart stuck with iron pins to protect farmers’ livestock from witches’ curses that possibly influenced the three witches in Macbeth. There is also evidence that the Native American princess Pocahontas attended one of Shakespeare’s plays; a portrait of her aged 21 in 1616 tells us of her key role in relations between Native American and English settlers when she was captured by the English and married a dignitary, residing in England until her death.

 

Huge paintings and rare manuscripts make up the backdrop to Britain's culture in the late 16th and early 17th centuries; the portrait of Abd el-ouhed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun - the Moroccan ambassador to Elizabeth I - is a dark, foreign presence in Shakespeare's time, and El-Ouahed attracted fear and fascination, possibly acting as inspiration for Othello. Digital installations of actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company are projected next to the exhibits, reciting monologues and acting scenes from the plays.

 

Staging the World is a fascinating insight into the world that inspired Shakespeare’s works which are still such an integral part of British culture four centuries later. 

 

 

 

Shakespeare: Staging the World is out now, published by British Museum Press.