Past Programs
Grammar and Syntax - 2008
The Tenth Muse: A Weed in Shakespeare's Garden
19/04/2008
Francis Thackeray is a South African paleontologist, a genial, professorial type who never raises his voice and dedicates his life to science.
Thackeray's interest in Shakespeare started when he played the Ghost in an amateur production of Hamlet. But his curiosity was further aroused when he found a reference to 'invention in a noted weed' in one of the sonnets. As a respected scientist, he went to the Shakespeare Trust in Stratford and asked if he could 'examine' some of the clay pipes discovered in an excavation under Shakespeare's house. The astonishing results were then published in the highly legitimate South African Journal of Science: in 8 of the 24 pipes, traces of cannabis were found. And, completely unexpected: 2 of the pipe bowls contained residues of cocaine!
The fantasy world of Francis T is now stimulated to the full. Was Shakespeare's work influenced by 'compounds strange'? Is the 'tenth muse' referred to by Shakespeare in one of the sonnets in fact dope? Was Shakespeare tripping when he wrote Love's Labours Lost? An intriguing radio thesis
