No holds bard: Shakespeare

Shakespeare

Thunderglobe: two gentlemen of Verona enter; one man leaves

There’s a new Fudebakudo image in the gallery: this one is about London’s famous Elizabethan fight venue, Shakespeare’s Thunderglobe.

The history of the Globe is fascinating and there was much that I just couldn’t fit into the limited space the Fudebakudo format allows. The performance space was known at the time as “the wooden O” (if you’re keeping up with the MMA theme, that could be O for octagon, perhaps?). The Globe itself was built using timber beams outrageously acquired by dismantling a competing theatre on the other side of the river while its owner was away on his Christmas holidays.

Today, there is a famous reconstruction in London on the South Bank, close to the site of the original. Even if you don’t go in, do spend some time inspecting and admiring the fabulous wrought iron Bankside Gates featuring plants, animals and birds from Shakespearean works, created by over one hundred different blacksmiths.

This was drawn for the current issue of Martial Arts Illustrated magazine. Looking through the magazine’s editorial over the years, the MAI readership doesn’t, in general, seem to be demanding much Shakespeare in its pages. Sadly this probably means they don’t know about the barbaric Elizabethan sport of bull-pizzling either, but I put it in anyway. Fudebakudo, in its own noble way, is always seeking to enlighten the martial masses.