Now lists of this kind are ten a farthing: Best Villains, Best Monarchs, Best Women etc (because belonging to a group that comprises 50% of the population is obviously its own genre) but we at Jane Shakespeare pride ourselves on offering you a little more Bard for your buck (not sorry). From now on, when someone turns to you on the street, cornering you with a look that betokens literary malice aforethought, and snarls, "Quick! Name Shakespeare's five biggest hipsters or I'll slice you up so thin I could print the First Folio on you", your days of gibbering in confusion and idiocy are over. Really, I am almost too good to you, but the general festivity and several large bumpers of wine I have been consuming daily to mark the occasion mellow my usually tyrannical mood. "Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains." - indeed, Bill, and Happy Birthday.
(A/N: I was originally going to include a 'Top 5 Characters Most in Need of an Intervention' list but a) I had trouble limiting it to five and b) most of my notes* were "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL" written in increasingly manic handwriting.)
Top Five BFFs
There's nothing a Shakespearian protagonist needs more than a trusty second in command, someone to wipe away the tears when everyone just won't stop trying to kill you, and provide wise words of comfort when the incestuous overtones start getting a bit much. I would personally be very grateful to have any of these at my side, and probably more than a little aroused.
5) Enobarbus (Antony and Cleopatra)
Who's BFF? Mark Antony
Why? Sometimes you just need someone to describe in fulsome terms why your girlfriend is awesome. Antony, bless him, is not the most loquacious tool in the shed, and much of his dialogue could be replaced with "totes", "STFU" and "soz babes" and you'd still very much be in reception of the gist. Enobarbus, however, comes out with one of the most famous speeches in the canon (you know, barges, burnished thrones, that one) about his best pal's lady friend, bringing the entire Roman Empire perilously close to going "actually yeah, I'd totes provoke a civil war for her too, let's just have an amphora and call it a day". Points deducted for the fact that he eventually jumps ship for Team Octavius, who has terrible hair and his parties are lame, but he has a great speech while he makes the decision.
4) Cassius (Julius Caesar)
Who's BFF? Brutus
Why? Every hero of a regime turned renegade needs a power behind the throne to topple that regime. Cassius is the ideal Second in Command, the manipulator who sticks to the shadows in order to let you shine. He's a Pete Campbell, a Littlefinger, redeemed by his totes-no-homo love for Brutus - and seriously, imagine if either Pete or Littlefinger decided to truly and deeply love another human being. Terrifying. My version of Julius Caesar is basically called "Brutus and Cassius' Excellent Adventure", and it ends when Cassius turns to Brutus with tears in his eyes and says, "you love me not" in Act 4 Scene 3, and Brutus gives his angstful reply, "I do not like your faults", voice cracking with emotion, presumably while manfully clasping the back of Cassius' neck and peering deep into his soul. Cue Snow Patrol.
3) Poins (Henry IV Parts 1 and 2)
Who's BFF? Prince Hal
Why? Poins is kind of a weird anomaly in the Henry IV tavern scenes - he appears to belong to some kind of aristocracy but, like Hal, spends his time hanging around with lowlives and drunks. He and Hal seem to have a closeness to rival Hal and Falstaff, tag-teaming each other for a series of hilarious public-schoolboy-style practical jokes (public humiliation of the elderly, torment of minimum wage service workers etc), and Poins is never around when Hal isn't, leading to the inevitable conclusion that Poins is desperately in love with Hal and follows him everywhere trying to pluck up the courage to tell him. (This is a recurring theme in the selection of this list.) Hal also unburdens himself to Poins in Part 2, when everything is going a bit mopey and minor key, and Poins gives him a sharp "suck it up, Crown Prince of all England" talking to, which is only slightly undercut by the revelation that Poins has been telling all and sundry that Hal is going to marry his sister, but I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out how obviously that's a displacement tactic for unrequited homoerotic yearning. Like Cassius, the relationship breaks down with Poins' armour-piercing line, "My honey sweet lord, you love me not." Not in a gay way though. (Totally in a gay way.)
2) Celia (As You Like It)
Who's BFF? Rosalind
Why? Celia wants to jump Rosalind's bones. Yes, I know they're cousins, and yes, I know she ends up married to a man, but these are minor details on the road to pastoral sapphic bliss. There is no way Oliver is anything other than a beard, and perhaps a way to spite Orlando-obsessed Rosalind by stealing her thunder for continuously and concertedly ignoring the woman who has been at her side from Scene 1. Celia loves Rosalind more than her own father. More than she loves sleeping in a soft bed, or having nice things to wear, or not smelling like sheep all the time. When people point out that Rosalind overshadows her, she does not give a single solitary fuck. She dreams of being overshadowed by Rosalind, ifyouknowwhatImean, andIthinkyoudo. She is her friend, her constant companion, her support, her conscience and, admirably, survives the extreme sexual confusion of seeing Rosalind dressed as a boy. When asked to perform the marriage vows for Rosalind and Orlando, she says simply, "I cannot speak the words." I will brook no other interpretations, though I admit it is entirely possible that I should have called this list 'Top 5 Cases of Unrequited Homoerotic Longing'.
Who's BFF? Hamlet
Why? Oh, everything. Everything about Horatio is precious and understated and we should celebrate him like the special sunflower that he is. It cannot be easy being the best friend of an emotionally fragile bereaved philosophy student, but somehow he manages. As with the best of Shakespeare's supporting characters, he has his own quiet arc happening in the background of the play, going from enlightened man of reason who politely exposits on Denmark's political situation to Captain of Team Hamlet, supporting him through shipwrecks, funerals and sword fights alike. He is the Agent Coulson of the Shakespeare universe. He is not afraid to call Hamlet out on his bullshit ('no, buddy, you just murdered two of our best friends, that's totally what you did') or express uncharacteristically instinctive concern for his wellbeing ('I just have a really bad feeling about this duel thing'), and even tries to die with his friend but ultimately agrees to live and honour his memory by telling his story, when, like, literally everyone he knows is dead. And I hope you appreciate that I made it this far without pointing out, once again, that Hamlet and Horatio are totally gay bones for each other.
Top 5 Hipsters
Whilst we tend to think of hipsters as a modern invention, along with selfies and emoticons and all the loud music the kids listen to these days, Shakespeare is, as always, ahead of the game. These five would not be out of place sporting ironically nostalgic t-shirts featuring 8-bit video game characters whilst shuffling through the Shoreditch night as the music of plastic-framed glasses clacking sounds in the background, the mating call of the hipster.
5) Edmund (King Lear)
There is no doubt in my mind that Edmund spent his school days carving the anarchy symbol all over the desks and going to detention for wearing non-regulation skinny jeans rather than school trousers. Do not talk to Edmund about legitimacy because legitimacy is, like, so mainstream. Edgar is legitimate and Edgar probably listens to Coldplay. Give Edmund half a joint and ten minutes and he will be expounding his complex socio-political theories about why the system is totally fucked, man, and the only thing to do is tear it down and start again. Later though, because there's this band playing but you haven't heard of them and you wouldn't know where.
4) Apemantus (Timon of Athens)
Timon of Athens is not performed often because it is, essentially, not a very good play. Timon is a man who has lots of nice things and then gives them all away and then is very surprised when this leaves him with no nice things. Timon is not very good at maths. In the second half of the play, mostly spent wandering a wasteland that is conveniently near Athens, the only character who joins him is Apemantus. Apemantus feels the same towards Timon now that he's poor as he did when he was rich, because he hated Timon when he was rich and he still hates him now he's poor because he hates everybody because fuck society man. It is one of Nick Hytner's greatest failings as artistic director of the National Theatre that in his production last year, Apemantus did not sport a deep vee and unimpressive moustache. And that is all there is to be said on the matter.
3) Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing)
One cannot deny that there is more than a touch of the black-rimmed specs about Beatrice. She definitely has a moleskin journal, and she definitely uses it to write performance poetry about why the patriarchy means the institution of marriage is inherently corrupt and also stopping her from getting a boyfriend. She has many impressively insensitive speeches about why everyone around her is stupid and tedious and marriage is for mainstream idiots, which she then follows up with various weakly delivered lines that amount to, "Not you though, Hero. I just meant people exactly like you." As with most hipsters, her presence is politely tolerated by family and friends until she can be foisted off onto another of her kind. After that, she and Benedick write each other ironic love poetry on their typewriters.
2) Hamlet (Hamlet)
Prince of Denmark, Prince of the Hipsters. An interesting case, this one, because almost every generation has given forth a production of Hamlet in which he embodies a predominant teen stereotype of the day - grunge, emo, public school, and now hipster. Perhaps this is because there is a certain type of studenty pretentiousness that never really dies (it just comes at the cost of crippling debt now), but nor would we want it to. Hamlet scores pretty high on this list because he is quite a loveable hipster, really, and also has somewhat more cause than most other entries here. Having said that, I do not want to think about how many scarves he and Horatio had in their shared student flat in Wittenberg. Also, they definitely used to invite Rosencrantz and Guildenstern round for ironic board game night and then always pick Articulate and always win.
1) Jaques (As You Like It)
If Hamlet is Prince of the Hipsters, then Jaques is their king. Jaques is such a hipster, any production that does not costume him in red trousers and have him entering the Forest of Arden on a fixie bike is…well, probably making the right decision, but you know. Jaques is so hipster that laughing is too mainstream for him, unless it's laughing ironically with hollow, detached hauteur at the accidental poignancy of the hilarious peasant who probably eats fast food and likes reality television. Jaques claims the top spot because all his problems are First World Problems in the Firstiest Worldiest way possible. He has enough money to travel around at leisure, spending an indeterminate period of time hanging with a banished duke and ordering buskers to play weird genre mash-up music that he wrote. He is, essentially, on a perpetual gap year, forever seeking solace in his own misery, pointing out doomed couples at their own wedding, and refusing to stick around for the disco. Jaques, he would have you know, does not do disco.
(Honourable mention: Prince Hal. Rich kid, hangs around in East London to annoy his father. Case closed.)
Top 5 Badasses
Joss Whedon once pointed out that Shakespeare kills his characters off all the time and he gets way less flak for it (but then again, Shakespeare didn't kill off Wash). It's a dark, dark universe out there, and only the fittest/least conventionally Tragic survive.
5) Achilles (Troilus and Cressida)
For the greatest warrior ever born, Achilles sure spends a lot of his time avoiding doing any actual warrior-ing, choosing instead to lounge upon silk sheets with snarky boytoy Patroclus (this one is canon, guys, I swear), encouraging him to do impressions of his bosses. Occasionally his bosses turn up at his tent to ask him to fight and he says something like,"Hey. Hey. How's that war going without me? Never mind, I can't hear you over the sound of me not giving a single embattled fuck." Achilles is essentially every teenage douchebag ever, but with the ability to kill a man with his little finger. Then again, such is the force of his warrior-ing that a little bit of it actually ends the play so maybe he was just being considerate.
4) Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)
Lady M scores low on the list because, despite being indisputably terrifying, she is very much all talk. We can blame this on Ye Misogynistic Olden Dayes, of course, but we still cannot place her any higher until she actually does some killing, rather than just saying repeatedly, "I TOTALLY WOULD BUT YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE PENIS HERE". I don't make the rules.** Also you get the impression that maybe if she'd had an actual career, she wouldn't have turned to murder and treason as a funtime hobby. Despite this, she's still a force to be reckoned with, and thus deserves her spot (hee) for being a badass by proxy.
3) Coriolanus (Coriolanus)
Coriolanus is kind of the explicit badass of the Shakespeare food chain. He captures a town single-handedly and spends most of the first two acts wandering around wearing clothes made of blood (and then, according to some interpretations, takes a sexy shower of angst while ripping his shirt off manfully in a moment that totally contradicts every single other aspect of his character contained in the rest of the play but hey, you got to sell tickets somehow). He doesn't score much higher though because he is the easiest unstoppable killer to manipulate in history. The majority of the play is people telling him what to do and him saying "that sounds legit", whether the instruction in question is to don sackcloth and humble himself before the proletariat, or turn around and march on said proletariat. Unsurprisingly, this ends with arch-nemesis/make-out buddy*** Aufidius getting so pissed off he stabs him in the heart. Which is maybe overkill, but he was being super flaky.
2) Portia (The Merchant of Venice)
Let's change it up a bit here. Portia might not fight any physical battles but she is scarier than everyone else in the entire play put together. The Victorians loved her because she's wise and virtuous and blah blah blah, forget all that, she's a hideous racist bitch, basically. She's casually xenophobic about nearly everyone who tries to hit on her who isn't the colour of cottage cheese, and completely destroys Shylock's life because JEW (this may also be why the Victorians loved her). But what makes her most terrifying is her sheer balls. I don't know if you've noticed, but even by the standards of Shakespeare's day, everything she does in the courtroom scene is hideously illegal. Impersonating a lawyer, pointing out loopholes that aren't really loopholes, turning the proceedings back against Shylock (who is not, after all, the one being tried) - at the very least, he would be a due a re-trial. Perhaps this is the point - the court is already so inherently biased against Shylock that they'll allow Portia's shenanigans, but I like to think it's also because she stared the Doge in the eye while running a knife along her teeth.
1) Henry V (Henry V)
As with Portia, there's a lot of bollocks going around when it comes to Henry V. And as with Portia, he claims the top spot amongst Shakespearean badasses for having pure unqualified moxy. Where guys like Achilles and Coriolanus know they are top of their game, King Harry plays russian roulette with not only his own life but the lives of an entire army. He marches a pitifully small force over to France and plays the underdog-iest away game in the history of ever, and all because the French did some French sneering, because they are French (Shakespeare is a balanced and objective historian). At Harfleur, he never has to make good on his threats to let his soldiers rape the women and murder the children of the town if it doesn't surrender, but the jury's out on whether he would or not, had push come to naked infants spitted upon pikes. At Agincourt, the moment that tips the battle in his favour comes just after he orders the execution of his prisoners of war (straight up war crime, in case you weren't sure). All in all, Henry wins against extraordinary odds through a combination of fierce chat, strategic ruthlessness and a willingness to play dice with a whole lot of lives. But I don't know, actually, maybe that doesn't make him a badass. Maybe that just makes him a dick.
Top 5 Sexiest Characters
I once had a dream that my job was to describe attractive celebrities in entertaining ways. Until I work out how to monetise this skill and make my dream a reality, I'm just going to write more about which fictional characters I would totally do.
5) Hector (Troilus and Cressida)
Troilus and Cressida takes place in a terrible world full of terrible people. Shit is just constantly going down over there. But in the midst of the carnage and betrayal and venereal disease and fedora-wearing Trojans, there stands a beacon of honourable hotness, a bright spot of old-fashioned hunkitude, one DILF to rule them all. Go thy way, Hector, go thy way, indeed. Hector will fight your morally dubious war and put up your shelves just because you asked nicely, probably with his baby son in his arms at the same time. It is but one illustration of how soul-destroying Shakespeare wished this play to be that Hector meets his end at the ignoble hands of Achilles' Myrmidons hiding in ambush. Let us take comfort, friends, in the fact that even Achilles required back-up to kill Hector, such is the force of his unadulteratedly righteous bodaciousness. Here endeth the lesson.
4) Prince Hal (Henry IV Parts 1 and 2)
I am aware that people do not always share my high opinion of Prince Hal, but then again, people are not always as naturally blessed with such inherent and unwavering rightness as I, and also people can suck it. Moral ambiguity. Quick wit. Desperate craving for fatherly approval complicated by deep love for a surrogate father figure he knows he will ultimately have to reject. Symbolic defeat of his foil in single combat, complete with knicker-dropping Shakespearian smack talk ("I am the Prince of Wales, and think not, Percy,/ To share with me in glory any more./ Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,/ Nor can one England brook a double reign/ Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales." PHWOAR.) Hal is a sexy little bundle of angst and quips. He is, essentially, a Joss Whedon character. And I can give no higher praise than that.
3) Rosalind (As You Like It)
I think I can best sum this up with a line from The Mighty Boosh: "They call me the Confuser. Is it a man? Is it a woman? Ooh, I'm not sure I mind." But before there was Noel Fielding, there was Rosalind. Rosalind, let us be clear, will mess you up in the head. She is a magical fantasy androgynous wizard coquette, and she waltzes through the Forest of Arden like she owns it, leaving a trail of sexually confused hysteria in her wake. The worst one can say of her, perhaps, is that she bestows herself upon a man not worth her time and who can bring little to the relationship besides some terrible poetry and light vandalism of trees, and perhaps also that she fails to notice Celia waiting patiently at her side (see above). Whilst in Twelfth Night, Orsino has a visible moment of heterosexual relief upon the revelation of Viola's identity, Orlando - one suspects - is easy either way. And so, undoubtedly, is the audience.
2) Edmund (King Lear)
If there's one thing we love here at Jane Shakespeare, it's a rebel with a cause. And Edmund is the rebel-iest cause-iest rebel with a cause that ever did rebel, with a cause. As with the best of his kind, he flits back and forth across the line of the redeemable, not so much immoral as twistedly amoral, but (BE STILL MY HEART) in the end, just wants to be loved. In a play full of world-beating lines, his dying words - "Yet Edmund was beloved" - go straight to the below stairs area as a simple statement of fact from someone who still can't quite believe it. And when the Marvel films wheel out their Loki version during his inevitable redemption via death (for nothing is truer than the fact that Thor is King Lear In Space), I will cheer out loud in the cinema. Edmund beat out Hamlet for this list for several reasons (see here for details), but mostly because you get all of the moody introspection coupled with the remarkable ability to get shit done (shit, in this case, is usurpation and eye-gouging by proxy). Brooding and motivated? Get it, Edmund. Get. It.
1) Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra)
There is only one character in the canon whose sex drive starts an actual war (shut up yes also Helen of Troy) and only one character who can justly wear the crown of Shakespearian Bangability. Cleo is not only one of the greatest roles maybe ever, she's also an indisputable MILF. Part of her appeal is her capriciousness - imperious and coquettish by turns, all throwing shade about Antony's boring wife one minute, and threatening to stab up unfortunate messengers the next. If 30 Rock's 'MILF Island' was an actual thing, she would win by a landslide. (New idea. MILF Island: Shakespeare Edition. NO WAIT - THE HUNGER GAMES: SHAKESPEARE EDITION.****) But Cleopatra wins mostly because, while she is undoubtedly slammin' of mind and body, all the descriptions of her seem to revolve around the aura of awesomeness she carries with her into the room. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Cleopatra has sexy in her soul and that, ladies and gentlemen, is something to which we can all aspire.
And that's it. Much as I tried to keep it to one entry per character, Edmund wangled two (he's like that) and looking it over, some of my favourite plays are glaringly, painfully apparent (haha screw you Othello). All that remains to be said is that, of course, these are only a matter of personal opinion and completely open to debate so feel free to put your own suggestions in the comments. No, go on. Really, I would love that. Disagree with me. I dare you.
*Yes, I make notes. These poorly-structured over-emotional outbursts don't just spring into being fully-formed. (Actually they mostly do, but sometimes I need to procrastinate.)
**Lies.
***No seriously, Aufidius has this whole speech when the two enemies join forces that basically says, "I have such a hate-boner for you. No seriously, I have dreams about this. Sweaty dreams."
****It cannot be just me that routinely assesses the room they are in by determining the order in which its inhabitants would die in the Hunger Games.
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