"first novels in the 1920s to the last in the 1970s. They were youthful in two Christie books written in the 1920s, middle-aged in a World War II spy novel, and elderly in this work. The title of the book comes from Act 4, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's ""Macbeth"", when the second witch says: By the pricking of my thumbs,<br>Something wicked this way comes. The novel is divided into four books. In Book 1 Tommy and Tuppence Beresford visit Tommy’s aunt Ada in a retirement home called Sunny Ridge. While Tommy talks with his aunt, Tuppence has a conversation"
"By the Pricking of My Thumbs By The Pricking of My Thumbs is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1968 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at twenty-one shillings (21/-) and the US edition at $4.95. It features her detectives Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Tommy and Tuppence were unusual in that they aged from novel to novel unlike Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, whose age remained more or less the same from Christie's"
"Greta Scacchi. The time in which this adaption is set is somewhere between the late 1940s and the early 1950s, but unclear and slightly inconsistent: a US B-17 (which left the UK soon after the war and was out of US service by 1949) overflies the village, yet US airmen wear the blue USAF uniform introduced in 1949, and there is also a 1951 Festival of Britain poster in the village shop. By the Pricking of My Thumbs By The Pricking of My Thumbs is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by"
"two other works by Angela Carter: ""The Bloody Chamber"" and ""Nights at the Circus"". Throughout the novel, there are numerous references to the works and impact of William Shakespeare. At the beginning of the novel there are three quotations, two of which allude to Shakespeare: """"Brush Up on Your Shakespeare"""", a song title from the musical ""Kiss Me, Kate"" based on Shakespeare's ""The Taming of the Shrew"", and the quote ""How many times Shakespeare draws fathers and daughters, never mothers and daughters"" by Ellen Terry, an English stage actress. In an interview on the subject of ""Wise Children"", Angela Carter"
"the 1950 collection ""Three Blind Mice and Other Stories"". Christie saw the potential of expanding the half-hour radio play into a full theatre play and in 1952, ""The Mousetrap"", the play that has the longest initial run of any play in the world, first came to the stage. As another play had run on the stage just prior to the Second World War also with the title ""Three Blind Mice"", Christie had to change the name. It was her son-in-law, Anthony Hicks, who suggested ""The Mousetrap"", which is taken from Act III, Scene II of Shakespeare's ""Hamlet"". Allan McClelland, in"
"World War. The suggestion to call it ""The Mousetrap"" came from Christie's son-in-law, Anthony Hicks. In Shakespeare's play ""Hamlet"", ""The Mousetrap"" is Hamlet's answer to Claudius's inquiry about the name of the play whose prologue and first scene the court has just observed (III, ii). The play is actually ""The Murder of Gonzago"", but Hamlet answers metaphorically, since ""the play's the thing"" in which he intends to ""catch the conscience of the king."" ""Three Blind Mice"" or its tune is heard a few times during the play. The play's longevity has ensured its popularity with tourists from around the world."
"title for an extant play. Historically, a reference to ""Love's Labour's Won"" (in Francis Meres's ""Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury"", 1598) predates the construction of the Globe Theatre (1599). The Doctor and Martha make numerous references to Shakespeare's appearance: she notes that he looks nothing like his portrait, and wonders why he is not bald, while the Doctor says he could make his head bald if he rubs it and later gives him a ruff to keep (calling it ""a neck brace""). Shakespeare himself speaks with a noticeable Midlands accent, a reference to his birth and upbringing in Stratford-upon-Avon. The episode"
"a London laundry. One of the workers, Amanda, fantasises about being the sweetheart of a handsome client, Horace, and tells her colleagues tall stories of their supposed romance. Horace arrives to collect his laundry; she confesses her deceit to him. Out of kindness he kisses her, and then goes, leaving Amanda alone, with her fantasies shattered but with the consolation of the kiss and his gold, diamond and ruby tie pin that he has given her. 'Op o' Me Thumb 'Op o' Me Thumb is a 1904 one-act play by the English authors Frederick Fenn and Richard Pryce. It was"
"contains a joke dependent upon this pronunciation, and the parody ""The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)"" refers to it as ""the anus play"". Shakespeare pronunciation guides list both pronunciations as acceptable. Cole Porter's song ""Brush Up Your Shakespeare"" from the musical ""Kiss Me, Kate"" includes the lines: ""If she says your behavior is heinous,/Kick her right in the Coriolanus."" Based on ""Coriolanus"", and written in blank verse, ""Complots of Mischief"" is a satirical critique of those who dismiss conspiracy theories. Written by philosopher Charles Pigden, it was published in ""Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate"" (Ashgate 2006). Coriolanus Coriolanus ("
"The Skriker The Skriker is a 1994 play by Caryl Churchill that tells the story of an ancient fairy who, during the course of the play, transforms into a plethora of objects and people as it pursues Lily and Josie, two teenage mothers whom it befriends, manipulates, seduces and entraps. Whilst speaking English in its human incarnations, the Skriker’s own language consists of broken and fragmented word play. Blending naturalism, horror and magical realism, it is a story of love, loss and revenge. As with Churchill's ""A Mouthful of Birds"" (1986), the play explores the themes of post-natal psychosis and"
"struggles between the great magnates of the era. In ""Henry VI part 3"" (Act III, Scene 2, lines 1645–50) Richard describes himself as follows: Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb:<br> And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,<br> She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,<br> To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;<br> To make an envious mountain on my back,<br> Where sits deformity to mock my body;<br> To shape my legs of an unequal size. Two other plays of the Elizabethan era predated Shakespeare's work. The Latin-language drama ""Richardus Tertius"" (1579) by Thomas"
"in the style of Agatha Christie's ""The Mousetrap"", as well as of the critics watching the play, with their personal desires and obsessions interwoven into their bombastic and pompous reviews. The title is a direct reference to the ending of ""The Mousetrap"", a play well known for guarding the secrecy of its twist ending, although the producers of Agatha Christie's play could not publicly object without drawing even more attention to the fact. ""The Real Inspector Hound"", much like Stoppard's earlier play ""Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"", examines the ideas of fate and free will, as well as exploring the"
"during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest that ""Titus Andronicus"", ""The Comedy of Errors"", ""The Taming of the Shrew,"" and ""The Two Gentlemen of Verona"" may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's ""Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland"", dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially"
"includes a plot of Shakespeare becoming cuckolded by his younger brother Richard, who had stayed in Stratford, a thesis Burgess first encountered in literature in the Scylla and Charybdis episode of James Joyce's ""Ulysses"". The novel's title refers to the first line of Sonnet 130: ""My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun."" Burgess uses a style which owes something to both Elizabethan English and Joycean wordplay. It ranks among Harold Bloom's favourite Burgess novels. He noted it in his book, """", as the most effective biography of Shakespeare, and proposed it as a canonical work in that book's appendices."
"is generally believed to have been one of Shakespeare's earliest works. The first evidence of its existence is in a list of Shakespeare's plays in Francis Meres's ""Palladis Tamia"", published in 1598, but it is thought to have been written in the early 1590s. Clifford Leech, for example, argues for 1592/1593; G. Blakemore Evans places the date at 1590–1593; Gary Taylor suggests 1590–1591; Kurt Schlueter posits the late 1580s; William C. Carroll suggests 1590–1592; Roger Warren tentatively suggests 1587, but acknowledges 1590/1591 as more likely. It has been argued that ""Two Gentlemen"" may have been Shakespeare's first work for the"
"1600, and several later writers have used parts of it in their own texts. Parts of the speech appear in films such as ""The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"" (1962), ""Tombstone"" (1993), ""Renaissance Man"" (1994), ""This Is England"" (2006), and ""Their Finest"" (2017). It has also been used in television series such as ""Rough Riders"" (1997), ""Buffy the Vampire Slayer"", ""The Black Adder"" and ""Doctor Who"". St Crispin's Day Speech The St Crispin's Day speech is from Shakespeare's history play ""Henry V"", in Scene iii 18–67. In the speech, which fell on Saint Crispin's Day, Henry V urged his men"
"Flora Robson. A film was made based on the novel ""The Turn of the Screw"" and also on this play. The film ""The Innocents"" was released in 1961. The Innocents (play) The Innocents is a play written by William Archibald that premiered on Broadway in 1950 and was revived in 1976. The play is based on ""The Turn of the Screw"" by Henry James. The play is based on the novel ""The Turn of the Screw"" by Henry James. The play takes place in 1880 in the drawing room of an old country house in England. A new governess, Miss"
"once in 1760, with Hannah Pritchard playing Maria. A performance in 1979 opened the Harbor Shakespeare Festival in Baltimore, Maryland. Another adaption was performed at the Arcola Theatre in London in 2001 and featured a combination of Fletcher’s play and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. ""The Woman's Prize; or, The Tamer Tamed"" was revived by the Royal Shakespeare Company in early 2003; their production opened on 6 March that year. The play subsequently moved to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The Woman's Prize The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed is a Jacobean comedy written"
"Chimneys (play) Chimneys is a play by crime writer Agatha Christie and is based upon her own 1925 novel ""The Secret of Chimneys"". The play was written in 1931 and was due to open at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage in December of that year. One year previously, ""Black Coffee"", Christie's first performed stage play, had opened at the same theatre. As was the law at the time, the play was vetted by the Lord Chamberlain's Office and passed for performance. Several press articles referred to the new play but suddenly, and without explanation, the theatre substituted ""Mary Broome"","
"in its day, over the course of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries it became perhaps Shakespeare's most maligned play, and it was only in the latter half of the 20th century that this pattern of denigration showed any signs of subsiding. One of the earliest, and one of the most famous critical disparagements of the play occurred in 1687, in the introduction to Edward Ravenscroft's theatrical adaptation, ""Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia. A Tragedy, Alter'd from Mr. Shakespeare's Works"". Speaking of the original play, Ravenscroft wrote, ""'tis the most incorrect and indigested piece in all his works."
"of Hand D. First, from ""Sir Thomas More,"" Addition IIc, 84-7: Next, from ""Coriolanus,"" I,i,184-8: Thirdly, ""Troilus and Cressida,"" I,iii,121-4: Finally, ""Pericles, Prince of Tyre,"" II,i,26–32: Many features like this in the Hand D addition to ""Sir Thomas More"" first attracted the attention of Shakespeare scholars and readers, and led to more intensive study from a range of specialised perspectives. According to Mark Brown of ""The Guardian"", British Library curator Zoe Wilcox argued that ""all the evidence suggested the writing was by the hand of Shakespeare,"" and the library has posted the text online. It has been reported that audiences"
"play ""The Mouse-trap"" (a title that Agatha Christie later took for the long-running play ""The Mousetrap""). The play ""I Hate Hamlet"" and the movie ""A Midwinter's Tale"" are about a production of ""Hamlet"", which in turn includes a production of ""The Murder of Gonzago"", as does the Hamlet-based film ""Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"" which even features a third-level puppet theatre version within their play. Similarly, in Anton Chekhov's ""The Seagull"" there are specific allusions to ""Hamlet"": in the first act a son stages a play to impress his mother, a professional actress, and her new lover; the mother responds"
"words, Shakespeare ""invented the formula that the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow of death"". Of Shakespeare's works, ""Romeo and Juliet"" has generated the most—and the most varied—adaptations, including prose and verse narratives, drama, opera, orchestral and choral music, ballet, film, television, and painting. The word ""Romeo"" has even become synonymous with ""male lover"" in English. ""Romeo and Juliet"" was parodied in Shakespeare's own lifetime: Henry Porter's ""Two Angry Women of Abingdon"" (1598) and Thomas Dekker's ""Blurt, Master Constable"" (1607) both contain balcony scenes in which a virginal heroine engages in bawdy wordplay. The play directly influenced"
"much, but think the more"" (4.1.85) and ""Not I, my thoughts aim at a further matter:/I stay not for love of Edward but the crown"" (141.124–125); Warwick's ""O unbid spite, is sportful Edward come"" (5.1.18); the entirety of Richard's soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 6, after killing Henry (ll.61–93) and Richard's ""To say the truth, so Judas kissed his master/And cried 'All hail', whenas he meant all harm"" (5.7.33–34). The play also featured in ITV's ""Will Shakespeare"", a 1978 six-part (heavily fictionalised) biopic of Shakespeare (Tim Curry), written by John Mortimer. Episode one, ""Dead Shepherd"", focuses on Shakespeare's apprenticeship to"
"traditional and non-traditional. The Shakespeare canon is generally defined by the 36 plays published in the First Folio (1623), some of which are thought to be collaborations or to have been edited by others, and two co-authored plays, ""Pericles, Prince of Tyre"" (1609) and ""The Two Noble Kinsmen"" (1634); two mythological narrative poems, ""Venus and Adonis"" (1593) and ""The Rape of Lucrece"" (1594); a collection of 154 sonnets and ""A Lover's Complaint"", both published 1609 in the same volume; two passages from the manuscript play ""Sir Thomas More"", and a few other works In recent years, the anonymous history play"
"It."" The middle grouping of Shakespeare's plays begins in 1599 with ""Julius Caesar."" For the next few years, Shakespeare would produce his most famous dramas, including ""Macbeth,"" ""Hamlet,"" and ""King Lear."" The plays during this period are in many ways the darkest of Shakespeare's career and address issues such as betrayal, murder, lust, power and egoism. The final grouping of plays, called Shakespeare's late romances, include ""Pericles, Prince of Tyre"", ""Cymbeline"", ""The Winter's Tale"" and ""The Tempest"". The romances are so called because they bear similarities to medieval romance literature. Among the features of these plays are a redemptive plotline"
"of the Duchess"", written to commemorate the death of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster and wife of John of Gaunt. The ""Metamorphoses"" was also a considerable influence on William Shakespeare. His ""Romeo and Juliet"" is influenced by the story of Pyramus and Thisbe (""Metamorphoses"" Book IV); and, in ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"", a band of amateur actors performs a play about Pyramus and Thisbe. Shakespeare's early erotic poem ""Venus and Adonis"" expands on the myth in Book X of the ""Metamorphoses"". In ""Titus Andronicus"", the story of Lavinia's rape is drawn from Tereus' rape of Philomela, and the text of the"
"a hard-boiled Roman private eye hired by Brutus to investigate the murder of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. As with many of their scripts, ""Rinse the Blood Off My Toga"" assumed the audience had a working knowledge of history, Shakespeare, and sometimes even Latin. In 1958, after the opening of the Stratford Festival of Canada in 1958, they created ""A Shakespearean Baseball Game"", written in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets, and featuring lines lifted from ""Hamlet"" and ""Macbeth"". (""""O, what a rogue and bush league slob am I!... O, curséd fate, that I, who led the league, should"
"title character and the grim storyline, Shakespeare infuses the action with comic material, as he does with most of his tragedies. Much of the humour rises from the dichotomy between how Richard's character is known and how Richard tries to appear. Richard himself also provides some dry remarks in evaluating the situation, as when he plans to marry Queen Elizabeth's daughter: ""Murder her brothers, then marry her; Uncertain way of gain ..."" Other examples of humour in this play include Clarence's reluctant murderers, and the Duke of Buckingham's report on his attempt to persuade the Londoners to accept Richard (""I"
"of the play, by Barrie Keeffe, was performed by the Joint Stock Theatre Company at the Young Vic in London. Sean Foley and Phil Porter edited the play for a 2013 Royal Shakespeare Company production, directed by Foley. They updated the setting of the play to 1950s Soho. It played in the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from June to October 2013. A Mad World, My Masters A Mad World, My Masters is a Jacobean stage play written by Thomas Middleton, a comedy first performed around 1605 and first published in 1608. The title is proverbial, and was used by a pamphleteer,"
"Lucretia's rape is the subject of William Shakespeare's narrative poem ""The Rape of Lucrece"", a work as long as many full-length plays, taking about two hours to recite. It has sometimes been performed as readers' theatre. Shakespeare alludes to Tarquin in his plays as well. In ""Cymbeline"" (Act 2, Scene 2), Iachimo has slipped into the sleeping Imogen's bedchamber, and compares himself to Tarquin: ... Our Tarquin thus<br>Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd<br>The chastity he wounded … .<br> In a soliloquy (known as the 'Dagger Soliloquy') from ""Macbeth"", Macbeth alludes to Tarquin as a 'trope of stealth': With"
"of the play for ""The Oxford Shakespeare"" notes the similarities between York's torture in Act 1, Scene 4 and the torture of Christ as depicted in ""The Buffeting and Scourging of Christ"", ""Second Trial Before Pilate"" and ""Judgement of Jesus"". He also suggests a debt of influence for the murder of Rutland in Act 1, Scene 3 from ""Slaughter of the Innocents"". Emrys Jones further suggests that Shakespeare may have been influenced in York's death scene by Desiderius Erasmus' ""Tragicus Rex"" and Thomas More's ""Utopia"" (1516) and ""History of King Richard III"" (1518), from which some of Richard's soliloquy in"
"play is based on various accounts of the semi-legendary Brythonic figure Leir of Britain, whose name has been linked by some scholars to the Brythonic god Lir/Llŷr, though in actuality the names are not etymologically related. Shakespeare's most important source is probably the second edition of ""The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande"" by Raphael Holinshed, published in 1587. Holinshed himself found the story in the earlier ""Historia Regum Britanniae"" by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which was written in the 12th century. Edmund Spenser's ""The Faerie Queene"", published 1590, also contains a character named Cordelia, who also dies from hanging, as"