Angela Barrett: The Random House Book of Shakespeare Stories

I’ve had this book since 2014, but only just this month found the time to sit down and enjoy it properly. Written by Andrew Matthews and released for Shakespeare’s 450th anniversary (though whether this was of his birth or the staging of his first play is unclear) this retells eight of his plays: four tragedies, three comedies and one history. This gives Angela Barrett a lot of scope, not only in tone and theme, but size as well. Some of her illustrations are full-page spreads, while others are just tiny vignettes.

The unique thing about this book is that Barrett provides some insight into her work at the back of the book, going through each story and her creative decisions in illustrating each one. For Romeo and Juliet, she notes that certain outfits and settings were based on real costumes and places, and that the clothes of the lovers were deliberately made bright in contrast to their dark and sad surroundings: “as befits their story.”

At one point she mentions trying to capture: “the oppressive heat of the sun and the cold feel of the stone,” and even though she’s talking about a different picture than the one I’ve chosen to discuss, it’s also a reasonable description of the above image.

Links and Updates

Another Links and Updates post with another sad passing to acknowledge: Sam Neill, one of the greats. This one was awful on a number of levels: that he had beaten cancer, that he was a national treasure, that it seemed as though he still had a lot of zest for life left in him.

Obviously Jurassic Park has come up frequently in the conversations around his death (and despite its many faults, at least Dominion did the right thing in reuniting him with Ellie), but I will always remember him best and most fondly as Uncle Hector from Hunt for the Wilderpeople and the titular character in the Merlin miniseries. That last one in particular was event viewing when I was a kid. My aunt worked at Blockbuster at the time and got sick to death of us nagging her to bring us a copy.

Dear universe, stop taking all the good men! We need them down on Earth more than ever!

Here in New Zealand we’re in the final month of winter, which comes as a great relief to me. I hate the dark and the cold, though it’s been a surprisingly mild three months with only one snowfall that didn’t even settle (and I’m aware that deadly heat waves in other parts of the world are definitely not preferable). But I still prefer light and warmth and long summer evenings, and now that we’re halfway through the year, Christmas is just around the corner.

Woman of the Month: Amelia Rojas

Pickings are slim when it comes to choosing a female character from the Sherlock Holmes canon – in fact, there are only three of any great note: Mary Morstan, Irene Adler and Mrs Hudson.

Yet that hasn’t stopped other writers from finding all sorts of ways to add more, whether it’s giving Sherlock a Lost Lenore (Elizabeth in Young Sherlock Holmes), a little sister (Enola Holmes, Beatrice in Young Sherlock) or a daughter (Amelia Rojas in Sherlock & Daughter). Some adaptations gender-flip preexisting characters (Joan Watson in Elementary) or expand the roles of minor characters (there are female Irregulars in both Netflix’s The Irregulars and Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars), while Irene Adler has been reimagined as anything from a master thief to a criminal mastermind. And sometimes they simply make up female characters wholesale (Jennifer Vandeleur in The Case of the Silk Stocking or Xiao Wei in Young Sherlock).

In a way it’s rather heartening that so many writers want to include more women, giving me plenty to choose from this month. Though the obvious pick would be Irene Adler, I’ve already discussed her extensively in the past, and a hot contender was the aforementioned Xiao Wei, who reminded me a lot of Sara Lance in just how cool she was. There are very few female characters out there who are allowed to simply luxuriate in how cool they are.

But I’m going with Amelia Rojas from Sherlock & Daughter, because who doesn’t love a Spirited Young Lady living in the Victorian Era? That time of restrictiveness and societal disapproval is the perfect setting for a headstrong girl to come along and upset the apple cart.

Sherlock & Daughter puts Amelia Rojas at its centre; a Native American girl who has travelled from California to London in search of Sherlock Holmes in a bid to solve her mother’s murder. She’s determined and resourceful, but also far more vulnerable than she’d like to admit and leery about the veracity of her mother’s final message to her: that Sherlock is her father.

He denies this revelation, but also sees an opportunity to use her as an investigative proxy in a particularly difficult case: and so her education in deduction begins.

I’d never seen actress Blu Hunt before this series, but she’s a real find. Equal parts cunning and naïve, Amelia takes to mystery-solving like a duck to water, driven not only by personal reasons but a growing sense of duty and justice. As she tentatively begins to form a relationship with her would-be father, she also becomes aware of the greater plots and schemes swirling around her, and rises to meet them – not without a few mistakes at first, but steadily improving as she goes. It was a great first season for her, and I’m glad a second has already been greenlit.

Reading/Watching Log #128

Well, no prizes for guessing what the theme of this month is. With the release of Enola Holmes 3 on the first of July, it pretty much chose itself, and way back in September 2024 I mentioned wanting to watch some of the other Sherlock Holmes adaptations that were floating around on YouTube.

The thing I found most interesting in watching so many in quick succession is the way they speak to each other across the years; how they’ve inspired and influenced each other. You can clearly see the shift from Watson as a doddering sidekick to a more respected partner, or the change in how subjects like colonialism and the British Empire are treated, or even the presence of the supernatural and its veracity.

For instance, it’s tempting to wonder if 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes inspired the 2009 Robert Downey Jr film in its use of an occult-tinged mystery. What’s more, the former’s use of colonization as a plot-point has profoundly changed by the time we get to 2026. Back then it was used to justify the existence of a creepy Egyptian cult in London and give the villains a sad backstory that is promptly ignored due to their habitual practice of sacrificing virgins. Fast-forward four decades and the British Empire’s treatment of its colonies makes for largely sympathetic “villains” in both Enola Holmes 3 and this year’s Young Sherlock series.

It’s just fascinating the way these stories reach back and forth the way they do, providing a linked chain across the years.

Also, I saw a record three live performances this month, largely thanks to the fact it was the school holidays and I am determined to instill a love of theatre into my little nephew. As well as that, two Babysitters Club books, the second instalments of trilogies from Philip Pullman, Scott Westerfeld and Philip Reeve, and a few Victorian-era Gaslamp period dramas. They went hand-in-glove with Sherlock Holmes.

Xena Warrior Princess: Back in the Bottle, Little Problems, Seeds of Faith

In these three very different episodes, we get the second sequel to “The Debt,” a comedy episode, and the next instalment of the seasonal arc, in which Eli returns and the Twilight of the Gods is teased. Highlights include the last episode set in Chin, a very young Rose McIver, Alex Tydings in a blooper so funny they left it in the episode, an answer to what’s going on with Xena’s pregnancy, and the swansong of both Eli and Callisto.

Let’s get to it…

Standing Tall #37

This giraffe featured a series of strange shapes by artist and graphic designer Ethan Attewell, described in the official souvenir booklet as “curious characters” that “wouldn’t look out of place in a children’s story book.” Because of how they’re painted on the slopes of the giraffe it’s a little hard to discern what they actually are: there are some small green leaves, a blue dolphin-shaped one, and… a few mandarin slices? And I’ve no idea what the red shape is meant to be. Furthermore, there’s also not a lot of them – most of the giraffe is solid white.

To my eyes, they look more alien than whimsical, or maybe a bit like fruit jubes you’d buy in a candy store. The name of the sculpture is Space Wild, so maybe that’s a clue as to what they’re supposed to be. Or perhaps the shapes weren’t made to signify anything at all. They’re just shapes. It’s a rather bemusing giraffe, and I’m not sure what to make of it.

This one was situated in Malvern Park, and unfortunately it was taken down after being vandalized. Luckily, we got to see it before that occurred, and it was repaired later for the auction.

Woman of the Month: Zatanna

Zatanna Zatara from the DCU

Yes, she might be a third-tier superhero that the casual fan has never heard of, but no matter when or where Zatanna pops up, she’s always a delight. I’ve seen her in DC Superhero Girls, Justice League Dark, Young Justice, the graphic novel Zatanna and the House of Secrets – there was even talk of a feature film for a few hot minutes (though Emerald Fennell would have been at the helm so perhaps a bullet was dodged). She was apparently in a few episodes of Smallville as well, though I had checked out of that show way before then.

I’ll admit, I don’t know a lot about this character as she exists in the comics, but I like her style. And sure, we probably shouldn’t fangirl a character for their aesthetic alone, but what’s not to love about a stage magician in a form-fitting tuxedo and fishnet stockings who actually performs real magic for an unknowing audience when she’s not fighting crime? It’s a bit like the vampires pretending to be actors pretending to be vampires on Interview with the Vampire.

Perusing through her Wikipedia page, a few constants emerge: the House of Mystery, dealing with Doctor Fate, a relationship with John Constantine, and the nickname “Zee.” What I think I enjoy most about her is what’s often the case with superheroines: she is permitted to unabashedly wield hard power. And for her specifically, it’s magical power, which means she can go toe-to-toe with the likes of Wonder Woman and Superman without too much trouble (there’s a great scene in Justice League Dark where she does precisely this).

I mean, I’m a Merlin survivor, the show in which all women with magic were evil and/or dead, so for a young woman to be self-assured, proficient at her craft, and respected by her peers across all the different variations of her character is a profound relief. Long may she continue.

(Also, find and read Zatanna and the House of Secrets by Matthew Cody. It’s great!)