Tagora The plays of Perry Pontac have been a well-kept secret on BBC radio for far too long. They have been turning up regularly on what I’m afraid I still call the wireless ever since 1987, but it’s only with Codpieces, comprising three of Pontac’s Shakespearean parodies, that they now at last find their way into print.”
So writes Alan Bennett in the foreword to this short selection of plays from Perry Pontac, an American based in London from the early 1980s until his death in 2021. And Bennett goes on to say: “I am no stranger to Shakespearean parody … but reading Pontac I am (only slightly) mortified to find that he can write cod Shakespeare much better than Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore or myself.”
High praise indeed!
If you want to know what may have happened after Fortinbras turns up at the end of Hamlet – come along to Tagora’s reading of Hamlet, Part II on Wednesday 9 September in the rehearsal room at the Palais de l’Europe. We’ll be allocating parts in advance, so if you want to read, put your name down in good time. It’s a short play, just twenty-odd pages, but it does merit a little preparation to get the most out of the clever dialogue.
Use the form below to contact us by Friday 4 September at the latest.
