SHAKESPEARE AND INTERMEDIALITY IN THE TELEVISION SERIES SLINGS AND ARROWS

Abstract

Shakespeare’s works have historically been associated with elite culture, yet their adaptation and integration into popular culture remain pertinent. His narratives hold such significance in global culture that they spontaneously generate numerous adaptations and sequels through the ‘snowball effect’, as defined by Ryan, both within the same medium and across different media. In the initial stages of adapting Shakespeare’s plays, the adaptations were intermedial. However, starting from the Romantic era, they also underwent reshaping in other media, utilising remediation for the purposes of modernisation and contextualisation. In today’s electronic and new media era, Shakespeare’s plays undergo a transformation across diverse media platforms, where familiar contents are transposed in various ways. Many intermedial and transmedial adaptations borrow recognisable topoi, characters, or plots, creating new narratives that often lack artistic depth. Conversely, the Canadian television series Slings and Arrows distinguishes itself by emphasising the enduring artistic value of Shakespeare’s narrative across every medium. Spanning three seasons, the series portrays the challenges of a fictional theatre company as it prepares to produce three of Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. Within this context, we witness the process of remediation, which involves the integration of one media form into another. By presenting the fundamental characteristics of theatre and highlighting its artistic nature, the series Slings and Arrows becomes both an instructive and entertaining media format. This paper aims to explain the method and level of success of the remediation process within the context of Shakespeare’s authentic narrative. The research method draws upon Bolter and Grusin’s theory of remediation in conjunction with Ryan’s and Jenkins’ concepts of intermediality and transmediality.