I had an ulterior motive last night when I went to a dinner on Shakespeare and the crisis. I thought the session, led by Carol and Ken Adelman, founders of Movers and Shakespeares, would be ripe for ridicule and typical of some of the enjoyable nonsense of Davos. Their website, after all, does talk guff about teaching “critical business skills through Shakespeare’s greatest works”.
How wrong I was. A highly enjoyable evening was spent discussing the Bard and his works with two people who could not have been further from the caricature of vacuous motivational speakers. And they had put together a great compilation of Shakespeare’s quotes that were relevant to the great recession, ranging from the insults that would have been hurled in Elizabethan times at bankers to the sort of grovelling that the leaders of failed institutions have performed since the crisis.
Best of all, some members of a small audience had to perform these sketches. The man chosen to play Polonius’ famous grovelling from Hamlet: Martin Wolf, the big beast of economics journalism. He was resplendent in a wonderful ruff and extremely large cod piece. I am having trouble getting the picture of this off my phone and on to this blog, but I intend to succeed. Watch this space – it is a sight to be seen.
For more on Davos 2010 from Money Supply see:
