All de Vere's A Stage

During this hectic summer of 2010 -- when your correspondent has been busy moving the SBAN bunker to a new location -- the world of All Things De Vere has been quiet. But it hasn't exactly been totally silent either.

Last week, word leaked that Sony Pictures has set a release date of March 25, 2011 for the Edward de Vere biopic Anonymous. Film & fan blogs have been either slightly aghast or slightly quizzical about the prospect. Looking forward to seeing what Sony's publicity push is going to look like. Watch this space for more as the movie's release date approacheth.

Meanwhile, stages in Edinburgh, Scotland and Santa Monica, California have been spreading the de Vere heresy too.

This is the last week of British thesp George Dillon's one-man show The Man Who Was Hamlet (pictured) at the Edinburgh Festival -- through Aug. 30. After the jump, a review excerpt.

From the Scotsman:

Rising from the grave after Hamlet's death scene, George Dillon draws the audience into an absorbing and thought-provoking one-man show. He takes one of the world's oldest literary mysteries and turns it into an Elizabethan drama. Shakespeare scholars may shake their heads, but the evening's a romp, and a clever one.

The Man Who Was Hamlet will, according to Dillon's website be touring the UK through next spring.

And on shorter timescales, a new de Vere whodunnit will debut at The Santa Monica Playhouse this week.

Abraham Alan Ross's Elizabeth Shakespeare and the Astute Detective stages the authorship controversy as a modern-day romantic comedy, which features an astute gumshoe who, according to the production's website, "[using] his computer conjures up The Bard and The Earl from their four centuries’ demise. His sleuthing brings him into conflict with Elizabeth Shakespeare, sexy Stratfordian who is positive that William Shakespeare was the true author of his plays and sonnets. As Tad tries to coax Elizabeth to his point of view, she fights her physical (and mental) attraction to this romantic iconoclast."

So there you have it. Clever romps and sexy Stratfordians.

And the build-up for next-year's movie that will, at least temporarily, tilt the game board a little more toward those of us who think the Bard is looking more like de Vere all the time.

(Photo credit: George Dillon in 'The Man Who Was Hamlet', Photo by Charlie Baker)