Edmund Kean

Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kinda sucked, and we bring in a new scholar every week to tell us why.

With me today is a returning guest who you might remember from his episode on Edmund Kean, which we recorded almost exactly a year ago-

Oh

... which I think is really funny.

While he was memorising the lines and getting the rhythm of the speeches and the rhythm of Shakespeare, the musicality of Bernard Shaw, the musicality of Marlowe.

And Edmund Kean.

would do what Beethoven did, which is to wander into the woods.

Saying the words out loud.

You give me the second truism.

Dying is easy, comedy is hard.

Who said that? Edmund Kean.

Great Shakespearean actor.

He left a natural son, Henry Carey, whose dramas once crowded audiences to the theatres, and some of whose gay and spirited verses still live in the memory of hundreds of thousands.

From Henry Carey descended that Edmund Kean, who in our time transformed himself so marvellously into Shylock, Iago, and Othello.

More than one historian has been charged with partiality to Halifax.

The truth is that the memory of Halifax is entitled in an especial manner to the protection of history.

Dying is easy, comedy is hard.

Edmund Keane, Beard Billy, Billy and Hoskett, hair tonic armor seeking for Sasquatch.

The nerve, Mandy loses her cynical edge.

Mandy gagging where how the bad scenes could get worse.