The Bard, Canadian style (or, how I learned that being ignorant about Canada is really, truly pathetic)

Americans, I am sorry to admit, have a very strange relationship to our northern neighbor, Canada. (Please don’t laugh at the Wikipedia link, Canadians. Many American’s will find it useful.) For the most part, we’re almost completely clueless about Canada, and all things Canadian. I wonder if this is the reason why I only recently came across the absolutely brilliant Canadian TV show Slings & Arrows?

The show is set at at the fictional New Burbage Shakespeare Festival in Southern Ontario. It only ran for three short seasons, each following the staging of (and story from) a different Shakespeare play. Season 1 starts with the celebrated star of a past staging of Hamlet who has since fallen on hard times, Geoffery Tennant (brilliantly played by Paul Gross) who comes back to the New Burbage Festival after the accidental (and gruesome) death of his former mentor and the festival’s long-time artistic director, Oliver Welles (played by Stephen Ouimette).

The show is written by Susan Coyne (who also plays Festival secretary Anna Conroy), Mark McKinney of The Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live fame (who also plays Festival General Manager Richard Smith-Jones) and Bob Martin (who plays a lesser character and is credited as “Creative Producer”). Susan Coyne is a well-known Canadian actress and writer and is the author of a memoir Kingfisher Days. The show has a core group of characters who appear in all episodes and all three seasons, then others who come for just a season.

Season 1 is adapted from and deals with a production of Hamlet.
Season 2 is primarily focused on Macbeth, but it also has a subplot dealing with the production of Romeo and Juliet.
Season 3 is King Lear.

So, if you, like me, are guilty of gross ignorance of excellent Canadian cultural achievements, get thee to Netflix and bless thy queue with all three seasons. If you love theater, Shakespeare, comedy, or if you just think you would love Canada if only you knew her, do not let Slings & Arrows pass you by. This is some of the finest television of the last decade.