# Novels, movies, shows about theatre **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 16, 2016, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116 "2016-11-16T01:00:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/61 "2016-11-20T06:00:08Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > THEATRE OF BLOOD. Vincent Price is an over-the-top Shakespearean actor who (a) despises the critics who despise his acting, but (b) really loves being in character. My fave. Diana Rigg plays his daughter. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/62 "2016-11-20T22:43:28Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > My fave. Diana Rigg plays his daughter. Theatre of Blood goes on the list. I love Victor/Victoria. Is the film version of Gypsy worthwhile in its own right? I love the musical of course. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/63 "2016-11-21T00:30:44Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > [All That Jazz](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078754/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_58), based loosely on the life of Ray Fosse. Ray was a catcher for the Cleveland Indians. I believe you mean the choreographer, Bob. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/64 "2016-11-21T00:33:25Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Ray was a catcher for the Cleveland Indians. I believe you mean the choreographer, Bob. Oops. Yeah, sorry, you’re right. I’ll blame my mistake on the fact that Ray Fosse is one of the announcers for my team, the Oakland A’s. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/65 "2016-11-22T17:45:15Z")
A more specific question has occurred to me – The “controversy” about the ‘authorship’/conspiracy of Shakespeare – have there ever been movies, plays, novels about it? My semi-crackpot theatre teacher in high school had a book called ‘The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare’ which was in the firmly-crackpot Christopher-Marlowe-wrote-Shakespeare camp. I know there has been fiction about Marlowe, but has any fiction dived into this or the other ‘theories’ (Edward de Vere, Queen Elizabeth(!), etc.)? ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/66 "2016-11-22T18:01:24Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > A more specific question has occurred to me – > > The “controversy” about the ‘authorship’/conspiracy of Shakespeare – have there ever been movies, plays, novels about it? > > My semi-crackpot theatre teacher in high school had a book called ‘The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare’ which was in the firmly-crackpot Christopher-Marlowe-wrote-Shakespeare camp. I know there has been fiction about Marlowe, but has any fiction dived into this or the other ‘theories’ (Edward de Vere, Queen Elizabeth(!), etc.)? I have not seen it, but there is a movie - _Anonymous_. > **[Anonymous (film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(film))** > > Anonymous is a 2011 period drama film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by John Orloff. The film is a fictionalized version of the life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, poet and patron of the arts, and suggests he was the actual author of William Shakespeare's plays. It stars Rhys Ifans as de Vere and Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth I of England. > The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2011. Produced b... > [@](#): > > The film was a box-office flop and received mixed reviews, with critics praising its performances and visual achievements, but criticizing the film’s time-jumping format, factual errors, and the filmmakers’ promotion of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/67 "2016-11-22T18:02:31Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > A more specific question has occurred to me – > > The “controversy” about the ‘authorship’/conspiracy of Shakespeare – have there ever been movies, plays, novels about it? > > My semi-crackpot theatre teacher in high school had a book called ‘The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare’ which was in the firmly-crackpot Christopher-Marlowe-wrote-Shakespeare camp. I know there has been fiction about Marlowe, but has any fiction dived into this or the other ‘theories’ (Edward de Vere, Queen Elizabeth(!), etc.)? H.N. Gibson, who for a while was one of the foremost experts on the “authorship question” to take the “stuff and nonsense” (aka, “Stratfordian”) position, said that if Calvin Hoffman had written _[The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare](https://www.amazon.com/murder-man-who-was-Shakespeare/dp/B0006AU5OU)_ as a work of fiction instead of a crackpot conspiracy theory, he (that is, Gibson) would have counted it among his favorite books. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/68 "2016-11-22T18:03:19Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > The “controversy” about the ‘authorship’/conspiracy of Shakespeare – have there ever been movies, plays, novels about it? Yes, of course. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(film))’s one movie about this sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/69 "2016-11-22T19:21:40Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > A more specific question has occurred to me – > > The “controversy” about the ‘authorship’/conspiracy of Shakespeare – have there ever been movies, plays, novels about it? > > My semi-crackpot theatre teacher in high school had a book called ‘The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare’ which was in the firmly-crackpot Christopher-Marlowe-wrote-Shakespeare camp. I know there has been fiction about Marlowe, but has any fiction dived into this or the other ‘theories’ (Edward de Vere, Queen Elizabeth(!), etc.)? It doesn’t “dive into” it in the sense of exploring it, but this comes up in Eric Flint’s **1632** , in which one character claims that it’s well known Shakespeare didn’t write the plays attributed to him. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/70 "2016-11-22T20:04:52Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > H.N. Gibson, who for a while was one of the foremost experts on the “authorship question” to take the “stuff and nonsense” (aka, “Stratfordian”) position, said that if Calvin Hoffman had written _[The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare](https://www.amazon.com/murder-man-who-was-Shakespeare/dp/B0006AU5OU)_ as a work of fiction instead of a crackpot conspiracy theory, he (that is, Gibson) would have counted it among his favorite books. Yes, that’s my feeling too! I read (some of) it, at the urging of the aforementioned teacher, and thought, even at the time, that it would make a great novel or movie. Will see if I can find ‘Anonymous’ although it doesn’t sound that good. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/71 "2016-11-22T22:32:19Z")
The Muppet Show ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116/72 "2016-11-23T01:03:37Z")
For the record, \*Noises Off! _is one of our favorite movies - my husband and I could probably spend an entire weekend communicating in nothing but quotes from this. But it probably helped that we both saw the movie before seeing the play. I acknowledge the play is probably better, but the movie is still hilarious, and has such an amazing cast! (Michael Caine, Julie Hagerty, John Ritter, Christopher Reeve, Denholm Elliot, and Carol freaking Burnett!) \* In the Bleak Midwinter_ (a/k/a _A Midwinter’s Tale_) is an amazing little movie. It’s funny and absorbing and touching and quirky. The only good thing about my bout of appendicitis in 2009 (other than modern medicine curing me) was that I wound up re-watching this at 2am because the oncoming symptoms were keeping me awake. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-movies-shows-about-theatre/772116.md?page=3)