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24 Hour Shakespeare Highlights

To mark the Solstice and Longest Day of our 400th anniversary Shakespeare celebrations, we went round the clock with the Bard. Here are just a few of the highlights...

As midnight approached, our 24 hour journey was set off beautifully by Sir Ian McKellen.

While a chilly Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's recent Hollow Crown had the first word...

Fancy a bit of Puck Life? Our early morning was a 'Blur'!

You may recognise actor Phil Daniels as Kevin Wicks in - or from the iconic song Parklife by Blur.

I'll put a girdle around about the earth. In forty minutes...

In 1981 Phil played Puck in the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Television Shakespeare production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.


From the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Shakespeare Archive...

Over the course of the day we brought you a feast of treats . Stars from Bob Hoskins to Helen Mirren, and Virginia McKenna to Roger Daltrey offered up a plethora of amazing scenes, from high drama to high camp...

Phil Daniels as Puck (Ö÷²¥´óÐã TV, 1981)

Phil Daniels

From Puck life to Parklife, as the impish character in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Before sunrise, a love-struck Romeo crept beneath Juliet's balcony...

Ashley Walters

As Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.

It is the East, and Juliet is the Sun...

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?...

As the sun prepares to come up, Romeo appears at Juliet's balcony. Here he's played by Ashley Walters, who has also appeared in .

A high camp treat at high noon from Anthony Andrews marked the centre point of the 24 hour celebration

Anthony Andrews

As Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.

We weren't alone on our 24 hour journey!

The Shakespeare Lives partners took up the the reins during the day on Twitter, sharing their Shakespeare nuggets and our time-related quotes, and joining us on our exciting Bard journey. The , , , , and all got involved!

So glad you enjoyed what we were up to!

Meanwhile elsewhere...

All this week in Stratford upon Avon the RSC are celebrating Midsummer with their Fairy Portal Camp ...

What is the RSC's 'Fairy Portal ?

A band of adventurers and poets believe they have the solution: unblock the fairy portal and restore the natural order of things.

Slung Low, Rash Dash, the School of Night and friends need your help to rediscover and create the magical ceremony that will reopen the fairy portal. They will spend a week at the site of the ancient fairy portal welcoming all comers at all times who wish to help to create the ceremony.

The world is in imbalance. We have seen the seasons altered and the seas are rising.

The RSC's Fairy Portal Camp.

As the afternoon developed, the weather seemed to improve...

So here was a good time for a sunny Sonnet, from Doctors actress Lorna Laidlaw.

Ö÷²¥´óÐã Doctors meets Shakespeare with the sonnets...

Doctors' Lorna Laidlaw reads one of a selection of specially made sonnets featuring the cast.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Solstice from Space!

Your Solstice images

This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o—erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.
— Hamlet, Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2

This stunning image was taken by Scott Kelly. Not Shakespeare related, admittedly, but as we trawled Twitter and enjoyed seeing what everyone was up to it brought out some topical quotes...

Shakespeare's Restless World - Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4

The way we perceive and organise time is shaped to a large extent by our ability to measure it. Shakespeare’s audience would have been familiar with clocks and telling the time: there are more than 80 references to clocks in his plays, making it clear to us that ‘Shakespearean’ time was well on its way to being modern time.

About Time - with Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4

A Striking Musical Clock

A musical clock made in Blackfriars, 1598 by Nicholas Vallin.

It was the Nightingale...

As the day moved into evening, we were privileged to hear a special recording, with a cheeky nod to Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare meets Springwatch!

Ö÷²¥´óÐã Springwatch does Romeo and Juliet

Martin Hughes-Games hears the nightingale sing

'Our revels now are ended' (almost)

'Twas now the witching time of night. Before letting Puck (or make that TWO Pucks) have the last word, here's David Tenant as Hamlet in the RSC's 2008 production...

David Tenant as Hamlet

From the 2008 RSC Production

"If we shadows have offended...

Two-for-one Pucks!

Thanks to The RSC and Shakespeare's Globe we were treated to two Pucks for the price of one! Lucy Ellinson stars as Puck in the as part of the project which features amateur groups.

Katy Owen is the Globe Theatre's Puck, in a production which has been dazzling as part of new artistic director Emma Rice's first season - .

Think but this and all is mended..."

Puck signs off - from The RSC

The RSC's Lucy Ellinson

Time for a few more Shakespeare moments?...