Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Hagtale: a Macbeth origin story – Sally O’Reilly

    Scribe Publications March 2026 ISBN: 9781761381430 RRP: AUD$29.99 Pre-order Macbeth would come pretty close to being my favourite of the Bard’s works [possibly because I played one of the witches in a school play – typecasting?], certainly its very creepiness is totally beguiling. And, of course, it is arguably one of the best-known right up…

  • Romeo V Juliet – R. A. Spratt

    Penguin Australia February 2026 Imprint: Penguin ISBN: 9781761349744 RRP: $16.99 If Hamlet is Not OK made you laugh a lot and cast Shakespeare into a different light altogether, verily forsooth! just wait till you get thy hands on this tome. I truly wish this had been around the last time I taught R&J [though I say…

  • Hamlet is Not OK – R. A. Spratt

    Penguin Australia July 2023 ISBN: 9780143779278 Imprint: Penguin RRP: $16.99 No one will be surprised to hear that after reading a couple of chapters before I went to sleep last night, I gobbled the rest up in one sitting today – and loved every single word! It’s not Friday Barnes, nor Nanny Piggins but Spratt’s sass and sarcasm,…

  • Graphically Shakespeare

    There is an increasing number of graphic versions of Shakespearean plays and they have been gaining quite a following. Recently our English department purchased ten copies of a graphic Merchant of Venice and had great success with these, engaging otherwise dis-enfranchised Year 10 readers. Here are two different takes in this vein – one more…

  • Third Witch – Jackie French

    Harper Collins       ISBN: 9780732298531       ISBN 10: 0732298539       Imprint: HarperCollins – AU 19/06/2017      RRP 16.99 AUD Macbeth has been my favourite Shakespearean play ever since studying it at school and being taken to a very atmospheric production for an excursion. Of course I knew that Shakespeare had totally fibbed about the whole thing but then he…