How to Be Epic @ Shakespeare

Welcome to the world of Epic - the only place where you can

become a master of everything on the planet.

So sit back, strap yourself in and get ready to become epic at Shakespeare.

April 2016 marks 400 years since epic playwright,

poet and actor William Shakespeare popped his clogs,

and in the next 15 minutes of epicness we'll show you how to rap,

act, sound like, dress like, direct, quote and die Shakespeare style.

And you'll see that you already speak Shakespeare without realising.

Prepare to be bedazzled.

Told you.

Our Will is much hipper than you ever might have thought.

Trust me, there's method in my madness.

Knock. Knock. Who's there?

It's Lorianne Tika-Lemba.

And she knows exactly why the Shakester is hip...

..hop?

Hi. I'm Lorianne of the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company.

And today I'm going to show you how to rap Shakespeare.

Nay, but make haste.

# Two households both alike in dignity,

# In fair Verona where we lay our scene... #

Put your hand on your heart.

You should feel your heart beat in sets of two.

-Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

-Yes! I'm alive!

This rhythm is similar to the rhythmic speech that a lot of hip-hop artists use.

But it's also similar to the rhythm that Shakespeare

used in a lot of his plays.

Shakespeare uses the da-dum rhythm five times in each line.

The posh name for that is iambic pentameter

Now that makes Shakespeare really easy to rap.

This I've got to see.

# Two households both alike in dignity

# In fair Verona where we lay our scene... #

First, pick a play. It might be one you're doing at school.

I've picked Romeo And Juliet as it's one of my favourites.

Next you need to pick a section of the play.

It needs to be written in verse.

You can tell it's written in verse when each line starts with a capital letter, like this.

Ah. I didn't know that.

# From ancient grudge break to new mutiny

# Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. #

Then you need to find a hip-hop beat or create your own.

This is the one I'm going to be using.

# From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

# A pair of star-crossed lovers take their lives... #

Finally, all you need to do is make your words

fit into the hip-hop beat.

But don't worry. Practice makes perfect.

# Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

# Doth with their death bury their parents' strife. #

Nice one, Lorianne. And now a recap.

First, pick a play.

Next, pick a section that's in verse.

Find a hip-hop beat.

And finally, put the words to the beat.

And that's how you rap Shakespeare.

Cheers, Loz.

Great start. "But how about acting tips?" I hear you cry.

Well, all of a sudden we've got just the lady.

Meet Maxine.

She's famous from the telly, as well as being a top theatre actor.

And, as luck would have it, she's epic at Shakespeare.

Hi. I'm Maxine Peake.

And I'm going to show you how to act like a Shakespearean actor.

Great! But make short shrift.

Tip one - do a character profile.

A character profile is when you find out

everything you can from the play about who your character is.

I've started on the board one about Hamlet.

I played Hamlet a couple of years ago now, and this is

some of the information that I gleaned from my initial reading.

Tip two.

Now you have to decide how you're going to say the line.

Now I use a technique called actioning,

which put the emotion behind the line.

On my script here I've got things like "to challenge"

and "to shame" and "to punish". So in this line, "Seems, Madam?

"Nay, it is. I know not seems."

The first way I'm going to do it is accusing, challenging.

"Seems, Madam? Nay, it is. I know not seems."

Scary.

Or I could just explain to Gertrude my situation.

"Seems Madam? Nay, it is. I know not seems."

Ah. Nicer.

So those are two ways, but there are many other ways.

And that's down to your Hamlet and how you decide to play it.

Tip three is using your whole body to tell the story.

So, I've taken a line from when Hamlet meets the players.

The players are his friends and he's really pleased to see them at court.

Now, there's one way I could do it.

"Welcome Masters, welcome all. I'm glad to see thee well."

To me, that doesn't tell me

that someone's happy to see these friends.

A way of doing it is...

"Welcome Masters, welcome all. I'm glad to see thee well."

So it's about relaxing and being in touch with your body.

And using your whole body to tell the story.

Quick recap then.

First, do a character profile.

Then decide how you want to say your lines. This is called actioning.

And finally, use your whole body to deliver the lines.

That's the long and short of it.

And that's how you act like a Shakespearean actor.

Thanks, Max.

Shakespeare created more than 1,200 amazing characters.

But he had a habit of killing them off, as you do.

However, give the Devil his due,

he certainly came up with some creative ways to get rid of them.

Here's the Epic top 10 Death Countdown.

Welcome to Ye Olde Chart -

counting down the Top 10 Shakespearean Deaths.

Who's going to be at number 1 this week?

At 10, it's a non-mover for Antony And Cleopatra.

Cleopatra is bitten by an asp. Oh, clumsy Cleo.

In at 9, it's a new entry for Richard III.

Evil King Rich goes into battle and dies because he doesn't have a horse.

"My kingdom for a horse?"

Shame no-one took up that offer.

At 8 it's down 3 for King John.

Ill-fated Arthur, the rightful heir to the throne, falls off a wall and doesn't survive.

Ouch!

Climbing 3 places to 7, it's King Lear.

Poor old King Lear dies of heartbreak after witnessing

the cruel death of his beloved daughter Cordelia.

At 6, it's Richard III - again.

King Richard's brother, the Duke of Clarence,

meets his murderous end - drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine.

At 5 it's another new entry. It's Hamlet.

King Hamlet's dastardly Uncle Claudius is stabbed with

a poisoned blade and made to swallow a poison drink too, just to be sure.

Last week's number 1 falls to this week's 4 for The Winter's Tale.

In one of Shakespeare's most famous deaths ever, Antigonus exits,

pursued by a bear that then proceeds to eat him.

No thanks.

At 3 - it's up 6 places for Julius Caesar.

Brutus's Roman socialite wife Portia dies when she swallows hot coals.

Don't try this at home, folks!

This week's 2 is a non-mover for Romeo And Juliet,

and it's a double death.

Romeo poisons himself, thinking Juliet is dead, but she's not.

She then stabs herself when she sees that Romeo is dead.

Oh dear, communication breakdown.

And taking the top spot is Titus Andronicus,

and two of the most gruesome deaths ever.

Royal sons Chiron and Demetrius are killed, drained of blood,

minced up and put in a meat pie.

Eewwww. Ketchup, anyone?

So there you have it - all dead as a doornail.

And that's how you die like a Shakespearean character.

Back in Big Will's day, women weren't allowed to act.

Boys played female characters, so their outfits were really important.

And four centuries on, how a character looks is still just as important as their lines.

Meet Robin.

What he doesn't know about Shakespearean outfits ain't worth knowing.

Nice helmet, fella.

Hi, I'm Robin Belfield and I work for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

And I'm going to show you how to dress like a Shakespearean character.

Lovely. It's high time... we got on with this.

Tip one - decide how you want your character to look.

What's great about Shakespeare's plays is they work in any period of time.

So you can decide whether you want your character to

be from the past, the present or even the future.

Take the character Juliet from Romeo And Juliet.

You could wear a more traditional costume.

Or perhaps something a little later.

-Or really anything you have in your wardrobe.

-Oh. I've got one of those.

Tip two. Give your character a personal accessory.

Props really help an audience understand what a character is doing.

For example, if you're playing a soldier in King Henry V's army,

you might use an umbrella as a sword.

Ah, I've got one of those too.

And finally, tip three.

-There are no rules.

-Even better.

If you're a boy playing a girl, you don't have to wear a dress.

If you're a girl playing a boy, you can wear a dress.

Anyone can wear anything.

Just take the clues from the text, use your imagination

and be as creative as you like.

Simples. Here's the recap.

Pick a distinctive look.

Choose a personal accessory.

And finally, actually do whatever you like.

And that's how you dress like a Shakespearean character.

Thanks, Robbo.

Big Will's writing is regarded as the finest in the English language,

such a spotless reputation.

Show-off.

These most English of words have actually been

translated into 75 languages.

Check these famous phrases out.

Cheers, guys.

That was all Greek to me.

Uh, I know.

Well, we're making great progress.

I'd say you're ready to enter a brave new world

and put on a play of your own. Don't you?

Meet top theatre director, Bill.

He knows exactly how to put on a Shakespeare play. Handy that.

And... Action!

Hello. I'm Bill Buckhurst, and I'm a director here ate Shakespeare's Globe.

And I'm going to show you how to put on a Shakespeare play.

Great. Go for it.

You don't have to do your Shakespeare

play in a space as big as Shakespeare's Globe.

It could be anywhere.

But the important thing you need to do is to mark out the space.

You've got audience on this side, audience at the front,

and audience to the side.

There's your mark-up.

For I must now to Oberon.

Easy, fella. Where's he gone?

My next tip is to think about what you're going to perform.

Shakespeare's plays can be quite long.

But you don't have to do the whole thing.

Just choose one section from the play.

Othello...!

So my third and final tip is to think

about the props you're going to use to bring your performance alive.

You don't need much.

I did a production of Othello last year

and all we had was some boxes to use to tell the story.

You could take boxes and put them together.

That's beginning to look a bit like a table perhaps.

And then from another box you could grab a piece of material

and put that on top like this.

And as if by magic,

you've got yourself a table with a tablecloth on it.

Here's the reprise, as they say in theatre land.

Mark out your stage space.

Next, choose a section of a play to perform.

Edit it if you want.

And finally, think about some simple props.

-And that's how you put on a Shakespeare play at home.

-Thanks, Billy-boy.

Now you can rap, act, die like, dress like, quote and stage Shakespeare.

It's time to deliver your final bit of performance-crowning

epicness - how to sound just like the man himself.

Meet Ben. He's a top bloke with a lovely voice.

And he knows how Big Will would have sounded back in the day.

Hi. I'm Ben Crystal and I'm going to show you how to sound like Shakespeare.

Take it away, Ben.

I'm here at the Rose Playhouse in London - the site of the first

purpose-built theatre to stage Shakespeare's plays.

-We know Shakespeare himself performed here.

-Wow.

But the question is - what did he sound like?

Shakespeare is often performed in an ultra-posh accent called

Received Pronunciation, which sounds a lot like this...

-POSH:

-How now, brown cow.

But RP as it's known was only invented 200 years ago,

which was 200 years after Shakespeare died.

So Shakespeare couldn't have spoken in RP.

In fact he spoke a little bit more like this...

-MIDLANDS ACCENT:

-Oh, for a muse of fire.

-Brummie?

-Or...

-WEST COUNTRY ACCENT:

-Oh for a muse of fire.

-Cornish?

Or even...

-NORTHERN ACCENT:

-Oh for a muse of fire.

Yorkshire? Come on. Make up your mind, Ben.

Let me make it clearer.

This is how Shakespeare would have sounded.

-MIXED ACCENT:

-Oh for a muse of fire,

that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

Ah. Regional mix.

It's called Original Pronunciation.

That means that words that don't rhyme now did rhyme back then.

For example, stars and wars in Received Pronunciation

would have been pronounced "stahrs" and "wahrs" in Original Pronunciation.

Tip one. Sound like a pirate. Use your R's.

Aaahrrrrrrrr. Waaaahrrrr.

Tip two. Use the short A's of OP - bath, dance and father.

Not RP - baaath, daaance and faaather.

And tip number three.

Say it all fast, or trippingly as Shakespeare would have said.

Not "Ooooh it iiis my Laaady," but "Oh. Tis my Lady."

Fair play.

Who knew Shakespeare sounded like that?

And that's how you sound like Shahkspeerr.

Whoa, hang on a minute. Shahkspeerr? That's new.

Well that brings us to the end of this Shakespearean epicness.

What's done is done. And all's well that ends well.

Now you know how to do so much more than you did 15 minutes ago.

So go forth, break the ice.

And be epic at Shakespeare!