Share your unpopular opinions here!

Pick away.  I was just seeing who was paying attention............

Now that is a teacher response if ever I saw one!

😂

I was once taken from school to see a production of Hamlet (in Harlow) where all the men wore M&S slippers. Consequently, we spent the whole evening nudging each other and squawking with laughter at each new pair. I wouldn't mind but we had been studying The Merchant Of Venice that year...

Miss just swore! 

I know! Bonkers, eh? 

Unless the kids turn up in doublet and hose I refuse to teach them anyway.

Haha, I don't remember that but it doesn't surprise me one bit.  I don't necessarily need to see Shakespeare done in 16th century period dress or a medieval drama like Hamlet or Macbeth with knights in shining armour, but the problem in Germany is, you don't get a chance at all to see a NICE production because the Regietheater nonsense is everywhere and directors are the Gods, who can mess around with scripts however they like (shorten them or even change them) and generally try to come up with new weird ways of staging. If it involves nudity, gratuitous violence or someone urinating on stage, the better (for them, not the audience). 

In Britain I feel that a "newcomer"  (and I still consider myself a newcomer to drama) can see a normal/boring/period costume version of any given Shakespeare when he wants to and after two boring straight period Hamlets may actually be keen on seeing an unconvential "concept" staging. So I can see both sides of Mr Hare's arguments. I think directors (no matter what nationality) should be free to come up with new concepts if they want to, but it should be balanced. If you want to see a Macbeth in biker's leathers, wielding a chainsaw, so be it. But you should ALSO be able to see a traditional Macbeth with blokes in kilts, furs and armor.  In Germany we haven't had that choice for many years and theatre has become something incredibly elitist and "niche". Ironically theatres couldn't do with millions of Euro in funding every year and are still struggling to make ends meet, closing one branch (usually dance is the first to suffer) or doing co-productions but the one thing they don't seem capable to do is to stage PRETTY productions with a mass appeal to draw the alienated audience back in.

I stopped seeing drama in Germany MANY years ago (after that dire Lear I think I tried twice more, one a "Death of a Salesman" shortened beyond recognition and a German adaptation of a book that was dull beyond belief.  When I started my London travels it was 100% musicals initially, but now it's about 60-40% musicals and drama. I can get my opera fix in Belgium at least, which is lucky as I can't stuff my London trips further. London has given me a completely new appreciation of drama, whether it's fresh new plays with something to say on today's world or DECENT stagings of classics. And after two fairly "normal" Hamlets I would now also be ready to see a bizarro "concept" Hamlet.

Well, I don't because when people are wearing jeans and Timberlands they should be saying "Cor blimey, she's a bit of alright!" not "Forsooth! Whither fair maiden cometh wantonly yonder my liege?" (And yes, I made that gobbledegook up in jest, just in case anyone should think to correct my Shakey lingo!)

It's the language for me.  It jars.  If you are going to use modern dress then I think the language should match.    

You are right B except when they talk swords and are wearing chinos. You have to change the text then and then well..unless done v carefully it grates. Having said that imo the Hytner production of Othello at the NT with Rory Kinnear was one of the best Shakespeare's I've ever seen. And the Patrick Stewart Macbeth also,v good. Both modern.

Just to add one more point to this, far more children used to go to church where they had to sit still & be quiet, even if they weren't that interested in what was going on.

Baz Lurhman found a way around that problem years ago.