Tonight at 7.30 to 8.30 there will be a special debate taking place online for Roland Emerich’s new film Anonymous, the director himself will be arguing against the motion; No, it’s not about the internet group. but a controversial take on Shakespeare.
THE EVENT WILL BE STREAMED LIVE http://www.facebook.com/AnonymousUKIRE
Organised by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Sony Pictures in conjunction with the English-Speaking Union
Anonymous is set to stir the long-running controversy about the authorship of the world’s best-known plays.
Starring – Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis, Xavier Samuel, Sebastian Armesto, Rafe Spall, Edward Hogg, Jamie Campbell Bower and Derek Jacobi
Set in the political snake-pit of Elizabethan England, Anonymous speculates on an issue that has for centuries intrigued academics and brilliant minds ranging from Mark Twain and Charles Dickens to Henry James and Sigmund Freud, namely: who was the author of the plays credited to William Shakespeare? Experts have debated, books have been written, and scholars have devoted their lives to protecting or debunking theories surrounding the authorship of the most renowned works in English literature. Anonymous poses one possible answer, focusing on a time when cloak-and-dagger political intrigue, illicit romances in the Royal Court, and the schemes of greedy nobles hungry for the power of the throne were exposed in the most unlikely of places: the London stage.
The debate is as follows:
MOTION
‘This House believes that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the plays and poems attributed to him.’
Professor Stanley Wells, Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Michael Dobson, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London and Paul Edmondson, Head of Learning and Research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust will speak FOR the motion.
Roland Emmerich, director of ANONYMOUS, Charles Beauclerk, Author, Lecturer, President of the De Vere Society and Dr William Leahy, Head of the School of Arts at Brunel University will OPPOSE the motion.
CHAIRPERSON James Probert
