In 1603, the newly christened King’s Males performing troupe took up a Christmas residency at Hampton Courtroom Palace. Each night time, the corporate — finest identified for its grasp playwright William Shakespeare — would have a good time the vacations and the ascendancy of its patron, King James I, with a manufacturing of considered one of Shakespeare’s performs, together with a New Yr’s efficiency of the romantic fairy romp “A Midsummer Evening’s Dream.”
Earlier this month, the palace as soon as once more opened its grounds for a royally sanctioned celebration of the written phrase: the second annual Queen’s Studying Room Pageant.
“To me studying is a good journey,” stated Queen Camilla, who began her Studying Room charity as a digital guide membership in 2021, when the pandemic prevented most in-person adventuring. Right now, the initiative helps promote the enjoyment of studying by highlighting books chosen by the monarch (her most up-to-date decide: Min Jin Lee’s Korean household epic “Pachinko”), producing a podcast and organizing a day of panels, guide signings and literary performances.
This 12 months’s pageant included poetry readings by Helena Bonham Carter, conversations with literary luminaries equivalent to Bernardine Evaristo and Mary Beard and a celebration of Charles Dickens carried out by the deliciously cheeky Miriam Margolyes, all drawing 1000’s of individuals to Hampton Courtroom’s historic grounds.
