the-mad-prince-of-denmark:

maddie-grove:

Is Mamma Mia! is a lost Shakespeare comedy/romance?

Evidence for:

  • It’s set on an idyllic Mediterranean island.
  • The plot revolves around a bunch of ridiculous misunderstandings.
  • The night of the bachelor and bachelorette parties functions as a “liminal space” that allows the characters to throw off the veneer of civilization and realize things about themselves.
  • A major theme is the return of a loved one who was thought to be lost forever (as in The Tempest and A Winter’s Tale).
  • The timeline is confusing. (Donna appears to have been in some 1960s/1970s-style band at the time of Sophie’s conception, even though Sophie must have been born in the late 1980s; similarly, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, nunneries are mentioned despite the ostensibly ancient Greek setting.) 
  • There are songs.

Evidence against:

  • The dialogue is really bad.
  • There aren’t enough dick jokes.
  • All of the songs are by ABBA, a musical group that was not active in the early modern era.

Conclusion:

  • Shakespeare wrote a comedy/romance with the same plot and characters as Mamma Mia! (called The Three Gentleman Suitors); however, all manuscripts of this play were lost, and the only version that survives is an imperfect illicit transcription of the play by one of his rivals. Through the years, this transcribed version was further changed in accordance with popular tastes (losing the dick jokes in the Victorian Era) and eventually got adapted into an ABBA jukebox musical (mainly because it was in the public domain). 

I hate this because it’s true

angryjerkandstrawboy:

ethereumwinds:

fun fact about the next avengers film being filmed in edinburgh: they’ve blocked off certain areas which is disrupting one specific postal van’s delivery route which is in turn leading to an awkward stand-off at the police station because Marvel Studios might be a billion dollar company but this man really wants to do his job and apparently interfering with the course of the Royal Mail technically counts as treason so they’re at a stalemate

this is the best thing i’ve heard all day

rikkisixx:

The Great Wall of Vagina – Jamie McCartney (x)

Jamie made molds of the vaginas of women between 18 and 76 years. Among others, they include twins and transgender women. Women are often confused about their vagina, because they think it looks different: with this project he demonstrates that vaginas are as different as faces. McCartney hopes that his work will help to stop the increasing growth of labia corrections in recent years.