Shakespeare in London

Having recently listened--in person, at London's beautifully reconstructed Globe Theatre--to an engaging young woman hold forth on the poor sanitary habits of the "penny stinkards" who stood at the foot of the stage drooling, urinating and filling their breeches during performances (right about where the $60 seats are located today in a West End or Broadway theatre), I was rather disappointed by this comparatively wan effort to ride the coattails of Shakespeare in Love's theatrical success. Narrated by a guide who, no doubt, provides an entertaining and educational walking tour, but is assuredly no actor, this mini-bio mixes re-enactments from Elizabethan times and Shakespeare's plays as it speculates on Shakespeare's London years. Despite the extremely repetitive footage of some guy playing Shakespeare sitting at a desk scribbling his name over and over (a practically plagiaristic reminder of the opening scenes of Shakespeare in Love), however, Bard-struck viewers will probably find the investigation into the identity of the Stratford-upon-Avon poet's "dark lady" of interest, as well as the dilly-dallying around with the possibility of Shakespeare being involved in Christopher Marlowe's untimely death (highly unlikely, the film concludes, apparently forgetting that this was a plot device in the feature film, not a contested point in Shakespeare studies). Optional. Aud: J, H, C, P. (R. Pitman)