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Adam B

@adambcqx.bsky.social

780 followers 210 following 740 posts

Editor, Early Modernist - formerly MA and half a PhD at the Shakespeare Institute, now with Reading Early Plays

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · Apr 30

My online modern spelling edition of A Dialogue Between Mercury and an English Soldier (1574) by Barnabe Rich.
- containing a visit to the court of Venus, a translation of Bandello’s Lady of Chabry, and Rich’s wholesale pilfering from multiple military manuals.
mercurysdialogue.wordpress.com

Mercury and an English Soldier

A Pleasant Dialogue by Barnabe Rich from 1574

mercurysdialogue.wordpress.com

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 3h

Well, I didn’t know that. That’s brilliant! Thank you.

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 9h

Spoilers! 🤣

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 1d

June Lockhart in SHE-WOLF OF LONDON (1946) #RIP

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 3d

Good to know. I’m a couple of episodes in, and waiting for the season to settle in, as it were.
Meanwhile tonight, also on @netflix.com, I watched A House Of Dynamite which was a relentless & absolute 🤯🤯🤯 !

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 3d

Yes OCR got 16th wrong - unusual for the iPhone which is mostly pretty reliable on that.
I think the dating answer is that they’re not really sure! The fashion for Western dress was 16/17th but the painting might be later 🤷‍♂️ ?

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 3d

Youth in European dress. Iran, 18th century or later, @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social

Youth in European dress. Iran, 18th century or later. Persia's open outlook and cosmopolitan spirit between the late loth and early 17th century resulted in many European travellers flocking to its renowned cities. Local artists, drawn to these unconventional visitors and their curious attire, often captured them in single-page compositions which later ended up gathered in albums. Ink, colours and gold on paper.
EA1978.2569

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 3d

I liked the old audiobook of Northern Lights with Philip Pullman narrating and various actors (not famous as I recall) speaking the lines as written for their characters in the original text. No music, SFX, or noisy battle scenes. But Michael Sheen is pretty good on his own too.

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 4d

In Worcester someone added all the flags from the Women’s Rugby World Cup.
bsky.app/profile/adam...

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · Sep 3

New flags have been added to the England ones hanging on the main street heading north out of the city, representing all the teams in the current Women’s Rugby World Cup (here for example Spain & Samoa).
The brute nationalism of the single flags is neatly subverted.

A Spanish flag just below a cross of St George flag. There were reports of the England flags on this street being removed, so it’s unclear whether the new flag and the England flag were both added at the same time or not.

England & Samoa flags hanging on the same lamppost

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 4d

🍊💛 🇷🇺

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Reposted by Adam B

Reading Early Plays (REP) @playsrep.bsky.social · 5d

Tonight we read The Maid's Tragedy by Beaumont and Fletcher (marking its revival by The King’s Men in 1612/13)
- no difficulties finding a text, as we will be reading from group leader Martin Wiggins’ own edition of the play.

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
OXFORD ENGLISH DRAMA
Four JACOBEAN SEX
TRAGEDIES

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 5d

One of my favourites! Definitely tremendous fun, and always a big success when we read it at @shakesinstitute.bsky.social play reading nights. Sorry to miss it (I’ll be reading some B&F with @playsrep.bsky.social tonight).

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 7d

Just voted in @nationaltrust.org.uk AGM

2025 Annual General Meeting Voting services provided by Civica Election Services
Nationa rust
You have confirmed your selection and your response has been recorded.
Thank you for voting.

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 8d

Dante descends into the seventh circle of Hell …

[Still from Thunderbirds: Scott Tracy, wearing a fireproof suit, talking to his brother Virgil via radio]

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Reposted by Adam B

Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 11d

British.

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 11d

Somewhere a scholar of Early Modern drama is mourning the lost income of no longer being paid to “help” Boris with his Shakespeare book.

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 11d

In today's least surprising news

Reposted by Adam B

Reading Early Plays (REP) @playsrep.bsky.social · 12d

We hope Princess Elizabeth & Frederick V turned up on time for the King’s Men 1613 revival of Othello, performed in celebration of their wedding (we know; not a great wedding play!)
If they wanted to attend REP’s reading of the play they’d need to be there at 7pm not 7.30 (it’s a long play).

Image cropped from the First Folio edition of Othello

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 13d

For every character providing exposition at the beginning of the play (an ‘Expo Lord’) there must be another requesting such exposition (‘Expo Req Lord’?) and here, in Beggars’ Bush, is a fantastically open (“tell me everything that’s happened in the last five years”) example.

Mer. My five years' absence hath kept me a stranger
So much to all the occurrents of my country,
As you shall bind me a for some short relation,
To make me understand the present times.

- Beggars Bush

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 15d

Now I’m remembering Turkish Delight bought in the old market in Jerusalem: flavours of fruit & flower & sugar, but also the pervasive scent of the Arab spices sold alongside.

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 16d

Love and Death 💔

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 16d

*Shake fist at … Queen Elizabeth* according to this episode of Sir Francis Drake (1962)

Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 17d

There are loads of Best Of albums around, so one of those that has plenty of songs on it and then work from there.
But also some live stuff, maybe: there’s a famous one “Olympia 1964” and I just found another one
“Jacques Brel En Publique” which seems rather good.

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 17d

1528: “For one rotten apple lytell and lytell putrifieth a whole heape.”
1639: “One rotten apple corrupts those, that lie neare it.”
1735: “The rotten Apple spoils his Companion.” (Benjamin Franklin)
- via Oxford English Dictionary

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Reposted by Adam B

Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 17d

BREAKING #antifa NEWS: "The England flags have been removed and replaced with other signs"
www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midland...

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 17d

Terence Morgan, as Drake, talks to the young actor (Duncan Burns) who has just played Katherine in Taming of the Shrew (in front of the Queen aboard the Golden Hind) in Sir Francis Drake: S2.19 Johnnie Factotum (1962)

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Adam B @adambcqx.bsky.social · 18d

“And they made statues of Elon The First, and put them in the museums where the old rulers had been; and they told us that with his outstretched arm he was pointing to the stars …”

Silhouette of a large statue in a museum; a man with one arm outstretched

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