My first historical video essay goes up on the channel today! It's a discussion about the characters in the 2015 film Bill and all their real-life historical counterparts. I'm really hoping the super dedicated fans in the Six Idiots fandom think I did a good job 😅
Head over to my website for notes and extra details that wouldn't fit into the video: https://museummimi.wordpress.com/2022/02/16/a-historical-review-of-bill-2015/
Welcome to my historical tour through the film Bill (2015) from the Six Idiots, the original cast of Horrible Histories, featuring some literary history, the Elizabethan royal court and the most extra 16th-century playwright you need to know about now. Is it really possible for a comedy film to represent the past accurately?
After five seasons of Horrible Histories, the Six Idiots (Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Jim Howick, Ben Willbond, Martha Howe-Douglas and Laurence Rickard) are no strangers to historical comedy. So it only made sense for the group of actors and writers to make a film about the early career of the most revered playwright in history – William Shakespeare. The only problem, of course, is that we don’t know anything about how Shakespeare arrived on the London theatre scene. But with the use of comedy caricatures and a generous helping of dramatic irony, the Six Idiots manage to fill the gaps in their story.