ABOUT THIS EPISODE
“O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!”
Do you ever find yourself scrolling down your phone and stopping only when something truly terrifying grabs your attention? (You do know that's the economic model for these platforms don't you? You know they're not deliberately trying to scare you, it's just they know your old brain is wired to read the grim stuff so that you stay on their platform and generously hand over you data to them.)
Has there ever been a more anxious time to be a member of the human race? Actually yes in Shakespeare's time they had several plagues, a climate disaster, forever wars, fears of big food shortages and angry men arriving at ports to shout at the immigrants fleeing in boats across the English Channel.
This week I'm hoping to bring your anxiety levels down from "aaarrggghh" to "ahh", although removing all those rrrgggs was made harder when half way through writing one of those Large Language Model companies currently burning a hole in the whole of America's finances gleefully announced that they were developing a machine that could probably wipe out all of humanity in the next few years or so.
Don't Panic. Keep Calm and try not to get too stressed by those annoying tea towels that urge you to keep calm and grow a bonsai tree or whatever. You can start by breathing gently, being aware of your physical needs, but also by seeing how a number of Shakespeare characters coped with the stress of plagues, angry kings and heavy crowns.
Plays featured in this episode are Hamlet, Henry the Fourth, Much Ado About Nothing (for the first time I'm delighted to say), Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth - all the big anxious heavyweights there.
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