My (current) top ten Shakespeare plays

Yesterday I humblebragged that I was “done with Shakespeare” – in the sense that I had now read all the plays that – in April – I’d listed as either low or zero knowledge.  This led to someone asking for a top ten they should read, and with much/further ado here it is. 

My rough criteria were

1. Is it readable/enjoyable (obv subjective)
2. Does it have something useful to say about our ecological and/or disempowered- masses dilemmas
3. Is it in general “good to think with”

 Nb your mileage WILL vary, and a year from now, the list will probably be a bit different.

Play	Why
Macbeth	It’s a corker, full of quotable lines (“All Our Yesterdays” for instance), and “stepped in blood so far that return were as tedious as go o’er). Also ecological readings (Birnham Wood getting cut down etc etc. Could/should be read alongside Richard III
Timon of Athens	Some hate it, I love it.  Critique of capital accumulation, human cupidity/stupidity etc etc.  Some real zingers in here. Fun fact – Karl Marx loved this play Here’s a limerick – Old Timon held many a feastWas by “friends” relentlessly fleecedWent from riches to ragsAnd now Athens he dragsTo hell in a handbasket: the beast!
Julius Caesar	Oh, if you want plots, hand-wringing and great lines (“Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much, such men are dangerous”) and the one about a time in the course of human events etc.  There’s a nice 1970s update/adaptation, Heil Caesar
The Tempest	Good for thinking with about colonialism, the resistance by the colonised. Nice language too.
Titus Andronicus	Lashings and lashings of blood and gore – nom nom nom. The best black character (Aaron) in the canon, and the banquet from hell.  NB trigger warning for extreme violence.
Richard III	Up there with Julius Caesar for machinations and language. Richard as the most glorious cackling unashamed moustache twirler of all time.  Tudor propaganda a go-go of course, and horrifically ableist. See also Macbeth.
King Lear	Hmm, with reservations here, but there’s the Kurosawa film Ran and also the recent book set in London in the 2070s-ish. Good for thinking about too much power and too little (emotional) security and intelligence, ageing, senility, vulnerability etc etc.
As You Like It	Strong female (Rosalind) for once. Pastoral stuff. The great seven ages of man thing from Jacques.
Measure for Measure	ALL rulers as assholes, some more assholish than others.  Tough women trying to tough it out.  Some bizarre “comedy” and Deus Ex Machina tosh.  Pretty good, imo, but ask me in a year or two?
Henry VI part two	Yeah, not a huge fan of the history plays, but this one makes the cut simply for the stuff about Jack Clade and his rebellion.