What normblog does on Friday, the Royal Shakespeare Company only gets to by the weekend. Well, sort of. The RSC has announced the results of a poll of 200 of its actors on Shaggers-related matters. In the best plays category Hamlet and King Lear came in first and second respectively. This reverses the narrow victory by Lear over Hamlet in the normblog poll; and with Macbeth and Othello sixth and seventh overall, thus in the corresponding positions to those they achieved here (for the tragedies), I think, dear readers, that we're close enough. Our collective judgement has been vindicated, as has the view I expressed on the basis of it that...
... for any large enough entry, these two plays [Lear and Hamlet] will come in pretty close together and significantly ahead of Macbeth and Othello.King Lear had several prominent supporters in the RSC poll. Paul Scofield:
King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare - or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.Ian Richardson:
The themes of love and loss, the futility of ambition, the pains of parenthood and the rewards of patience are treated with a magic touch.I thought you'd like to know. For other RSC poll results, read the whole thing.