Adam B
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adambcqx.bsky.social
Adam B
@adambcqx.bsky.social
780 followers 210 following 770 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
Reposted by Adam B
hltn.bsky.social
✍ Introducing ✍

Sharpie, a letterform recognition game for beginner #EarlyModern #palaeography

gjhilton.github.io/Sharpie/

AKA What I Did Over Reading Week.

#skystorians I’d be so grateful if you had time to share or take a look and tell me what sucks and needs fixing.

Love g 🗃️
Sharpie
Sharpie, a letterform recognition game for apprentice Early Modern palaeographers
gjhilton.github.io
November 12, 2025 at 11:11 PM
adambcqx.bsky.social
Meanwhile, in local news …
(Police described the wanted man as “unexpectedly short.”)
Screenshot from the Worcester News website: Crime NEWS Wanted man appeal issued again 6 hrs ago + a photograph of the man, but only the top of his head is visible
November 10, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Adam B
jessicaelgot.bsky.social
Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?
November 10, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Reposted by Adam B
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Fortinbras: no words... EXEUNT. FINIS. THE END.
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
And so it ends... Branagh carried off, and in his coffin in the 1996 film; Andrew Scott in a publicity image for the Almeida production in 2017.
A colour still from a film: a young man wearing a white singlet with black straps, his arms bare, is being carried on the shoulders of soldiers with bare heads, wearing grey greatcoats. HIs arms are outstretched and his head is hanging down. There are similarly dressed soldiers forming a guard of honour, with rifles in their hands. A still from a film. A young man with blond hair and a moustache is lying with his eyes closed in a pale satin-lined coffin, set on snowy ground. He is wearing elaborate black military-style uniform and has a sword held in his hands. A colour publicity image for a play. A young man with dark hair, wearing a black top with a colourful image of flowers on the front, is lying in what looks like a white-satin-lined coffin. His eyes are open and he is staring up. There are white gladioli lying on his torso and white gypsophila on the coffin. It's lit in blue and looks slightly surreal.
November 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
Louis Jourdan in ‘Count Dracula’ (BBC 1977)
- available to stream in the UK on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social until 8th November
⬆️🔉🔊⬆️
November 6, 2025 at 9:17 PM
adambcqx.bsky.social
Our #Playmakers project has reached the stage where I can sit in a café, drumming out pentameters on the table with my fingers & searching the OED for the non-anachronistic mot juste.
#AmWriting
#CunningFlorentines
#VeryFirstDraft
1.1. Cunning scratch Great Venice welcomes you, our honoured guests, The lions of st marks do roar their x. [praise] [your xx roar] a golden jewel in an azure sea, This xx city now so [filled/runs/flows] with gold That [xxx] we cannot choose but build A [massive] treasury beyond the xx dreams [scrambling] Of Babel's ancient tow'ring engineers To store and safeguard all our xx wealth.
November 5, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Adam B
zohrankmamdani.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Reposted by Adam B
leximcmenamin.com
if you want to know what happened to Teen Vogue yesterday, my work wife @allegrak.bsky.social — who ran our politics section for 6 years until this past June — said it all in this.

can't even pull out a favorite part til I sign my separation letter lol, just read the whole thing.
What We Lost When Condé Nast Unceremoniously Shuttered Teen Vogue
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news...
talkingpointsmemo.com
November 4, 2025 at 5:14 PM
adambcqx.bsky.social
From the documentary Our Mister Shakespeare (1944) - a travelogue of Stratford Upon Avon & the surrounding area, including this and one other scene from #Shakespeare
- unclear who the actors are playing Hamlet & Ophelia. Does anyone recognise them?
November 4, 2025 at 3:46 PM
adambcqx.bsky.social
The Magisterium’s Musical Exorcism Unit attempting the capture & removal of an irregular rodent daemon from the pipes of what has come to be known as the Cathedral’s Marvelous Mechanical Mouse Organ.
“Who you gonna call?” A large wooden box with a wide flexible pipe leading into the inner workings of a large church organ.
November 4, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Adam B
playsrep.bsky.social
Stars and Statues Made Human, Olympian Knights, Princes of Virginia!

This Wednesday in REP we read three masques for the Lady Elizabeth’s Wedding in 1613.
- written by Chapman & Beaumont, designs by Inigo Jones, music by Johnson, Coprario & Confesse

No Farthingales May Be Worn
From the title page of The Memorable Maske 1613 For more information see readingearlyplays.com
November 4, 2025 at 10:37 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
[unclear how they came to ingest the poison; perhaps via pigeons that the parents caught & fed to them.]
www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/2559223...
Peregrine falcon chicks 'poisoned' as post-mortem results revealed
The peregrine falcon chicks were a popular sight at Worcester Cathedral, followed by many on the YouTube livestream
www.worcesternews.co.uk
November 4, 2025 at 8:27 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
Bottom of the ninth it is then ….
November 2, 2025 at 3:21 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
- arrived in the post today, Tower of London (1938) with Basil Rathbone as Richard III; having recently streamed the 1962 remake where Vincent Price was the King (in the earlier version he’d played the Duke of Clarence); Olivier’s Shakespearean Richard III was filmed in 1955.
DVD cover of TOWER OF LONDON, with a bald Boris Karloff staring out at us.
November 1, 2025 at 9:47 PM
adambcqx.bsky.social
- from Worcester’s Bridge of Lights festival last night
The bridge in Worcester, illuminated in yellow A circle, a portal, glowing in cathedral stone; surrounded by a pale green luminosity A projection, somewhat transparent; a bird, a pigeon with splashes of blue and yellow on its wings
October 31, 2025 at 10:15 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
🏏 - brilliant run chase by India! 🇮🇳 #CWC2025
October 30, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Adam B
playsrep.bsky.social
“Had I plantation of this isle, my lord … And were the king on’t, what would I do?”
- Tonight in REP we will have an AGM at 7pm, followed by a reading of The Tempest to mark its 1612/13 revival by The Kings’ Men.
A scene from “The Tempest”. From “The Library Shakspeare, Volume One - Comedies”, illustrated by Sir John Gilbert, George Cruikshank and R. Dudley. Published in London by William Mackenzie, c1882.
October 29, 2025 at 11:12 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
June Lockhart in SHE-WOLF OF LONDON (1946) #RIP
October 26, 2025 at 4:40 PM
adambcqx.bsky.social
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
October 24, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Adam B
playsrep.bsky.social
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
October 22, 2025 at 7:58 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
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.
October 20, 2025 at 8:57 AM
adambcqx.bsky.social
Dante descends into the seventh circle of Hell …
[Still from Thunderbirds: Scott Tracy, wearing a fireproof suit, talking to his brother Virgil via radio]
October 19, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Adam B
zackpolanski.bsky.social
British.
October 16, 2025 at 5:03 PM
adambcqx.bsky.social
Somewhere a scholar of Early Modern drama is mourning the lost income of no longer being paid to “help” Boris with his Shakespeare book.
adambienkov.bsky.social Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 28d
In today's least surprising news
October 16, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Adam B
playsrep.bsky.social
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
October 15, 2025 at 7:33 AM