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Romeo And Juliet To Be Turned Into Pop-Rock Opera (And 11 Other Things You Didn't Know About The Bard)

PA/Huffington Post  |  Posted: Updated: 21/05/2012 08:44

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William Shakespeare's classic tragedy Romeo and Juliet is to be turned into a pop-rock opera.

Buyers at the Marche du Film in Cannes are being asked to back the new adaptation of the bard's work, which promises trashy trailer park divisions, rock, rap and pop.

Producers of Romeo and Juliet: A Love Song, shot in New Zealand, described it as a version for the YouTube generation, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Producer Alastair Carruther said this version of Shakespeare's classic tragedy is "almost entirely sung"

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  • Shakespeare's work contains the first recordings of over 2000 English words including elbow, lackluster and moonbeam. PICTURE: Artfinder

  • He is also responsible for inventing a huge number of expressions still in common use today. These include: fancy free; dash to pieces; lay it on with a trowel; rhyme nor reason, and wear your heart on your sleeve PICTURE: Wikimedia

  • In Shakespeare's time theatres had no curtain and no scenery, and lighting was just daylight or candlelight, so the set had to be written into the play and described by the actors. PICTURE: Wikimedia

  • In 1613 the original Globe theatre burned down when a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII caused it to go up in flames.

  • There is evidence to suggest that the William Shakespeare did not in fact write the Shakespeare plays: about 50 other candidates have been suggested, include Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Among those who doubt Shakespeare's authorship are Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud and Charlie Chaplin. PICTURE: Wikimedia

  • The First Folio was the first extensive collection of Shakespeare's plays, and was published after his death in 1623. It is the only source for about 20 of Shakespeare's plays, which otherwise would be lost.

  • Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, made gloves for a living but in the 1570s he was prosecuted four times for breaking the law by trading in wool and money-lending. PICTURE: Wikimedia

  • According to the<em> Oxford Dictionary of Quotations</em>, Shakespeare wrote about one tenth of the most quotable quotations ever written or spoken in the English language.

  • When Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, she was already three months pregnant with their first child. PICTURE: Wikimedia

  • Although he spelled it all kinds of ways throughout his life (such as Willm Shaksp and William Shakspere) he never actually signed his name 'William Shakespeare'. PICTURE: Wikimedia

  • The family line ended in 1670 when Shakespeare's daughter Judith died. She was the only one of his three children to have children, and they all died young. PICTURE: Wikimedia
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William Shakespeare's classic tragedy Romeo and Juliet is to be turned into a pop-rock opera. Buyers at the Marche du Film in Cannes are being asked to back the new adaptation of the bard's work, w...
William Shakespeare's classic tragedy Romeo and Juliet is to be turned into a pop-rock opera. Buyers at the Marche du Film in Cannes are being asked to back the new adaptation of the bard's work, w...
 
 
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OliverKamm
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14:49 on 21/05/2012
"There is evidence to suggest that William Shakespeare did not in fact write the Shakespeare plays."

There is no evidence whatever in support of this absurd conspiracy theory, any more than there is for a crashed UFO at Roswell or a Jewish conspiracy to fabricate the Holocaust.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
kidjudas
My Governor is not smarter than a 5th grader
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01:06 on 22/05/2012
Wow. Not pulling any punches, eh?
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William Ray
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02:07 on 22/05/2012
I take it Mr. Kamm feels he must play the hit-man for the Stratford Shakespeare mythology. He states categorically there is "no evidence" that another person, than the money-lender Shakspere, assumed the stage-name Shakespeare and then attributed the entire canon to that masked name. But this is the very question up for discussion, a discussion dangerous to Mr. Kamm apparently from his hyperbolic language. If there were no doubt, why not simply present the conclusive facts and be done? Because the facts sink the myth.

What facts? Thousands. By simply looking at the signature page in the slide show, you can see that "Shakspere" could not write his name. He could not write anything. There is no record of any writing whatever by him. To associate ordinary logic--of which I have presented only one critical detail--with dubious, preposterous, and egregious beliefs, is the device of a slanderer, not a wholesome seeker of truth regarding the central figure of English literature.

A few more facts. The first two portraits in the slide show have nothing to do with the author of the Shakespeare canon. The first is a copy of the Thomas Overbury portrait, discredited as Shakespeare a few days after it was so claimed. The second is a portrait of no known provenance that is claimed as "Shakespeare", with a ring in his ear for artistic individuality. The golden portrait is 'Shakespeare', Edward de Vere as a youth.
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