Virginia and I try to see some open air Shakespeare each year. One feels for the actors and actresses who perform in the variable English weather. Happily July 20th was a fine day when we went and saw "Love's Labours Lost" in the gardens of Downing College.

They hammed it up, but perhaps in Shakespeare's day they hammed it up too. The Bard's plays should not be treated as sacred texts? Some of the hamming up was quite funny as when the King of Navarre and his companions pretended to be Cossacks. The play itself has elements you will find in other Shakespeare plays - bawdy humour, feisty heroines not at a loss for biting dialogue, love befuddled fools. It did feel unfinished because it doesn't all end in the leads getting paired off.