Patrick Stewart Is Treating Twitter To One Shakespeare Sonnet A Day During Lockdown

By Maire Rose Connor Last edited 48 months ago

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Patrick Stewart Is Treating Twitter To One Shakespeare Sonnet A Day During Lockdown
Screenshot via Twitter

Great poetry is a salve for the soul, and it doesn't get much greater than the Bard of Avon. Unless, of course, you add one of the greatest living Shakespearean actors into the mix.

With theatreland having gone dark, legendary thespian and all-round good egg Sir Patrick Stewart is treating the internet to a daily dose of culture instead, with a little help from Shakespeare's book of sonnets.

Since Saturday 21 March, Stewart has posted a video every day, in which he recites a different Shakespearean sonnet. He kicked things off with a classic: Sonnet 116, Shakespeare's idealised take on romantic love. Suffice to say that the Bard's mastery of poetic language combined with Stewart's deep, velvety timbre is our kind of ASMR.

With Sonnet 116 having gone down a storm, Stewart has announced his intention to post a performance of a Shakespearean sonnet every day — a lovely gesture at a time when public access to the performing arts is — by necessity — rather limited. He seems to now be working through the sonnets chronologically having, at the time of writing, performed Sonnets 1-3.

Fans of Stewart will probably be aware that this is far from the actor's first foray into Shakespeare. He was The Tempest's Prospero on Broadway all the way back in 1991, and his West End Shakespearean roles include Mark Antony, Macbeth and King Claudius in Hamlet.

Still, if you only know Stewart at Star Trek's Captain Picard, this new endeavour is chance to see a new side of the actor. Follow him on Twitter for more.

Keep up to date on all the latest London coronavirus news here.

Last Updated 25 March 2020