"Give my compliments to the Chef..."

If music be the food of love, you might have some kind of Synaesthesia going on, there. It seems there are about 80 different types of this ‘condition’/Super Power! - so it wouldn’t be just yourself and Orsino.

My own variety manifests in a tendency towards the tasting and feeling of words, sometimes both at the same time. You too, huh? - Thought so!

You’ll know, then, that just reading them on the page is only the equivalent of perusing the menu; there’s maybe an anticipatory watering of the mouth, but the real flavours are released when the words are spoken aloud, either by oneself or when heard spoken by another.

Sometimes words can be felt, and actually produce emotions. As someone who grew up in the 1960s, I still experience a mounting anticipation whenever I hear the phases: ‘Ignition sequence start…’ and ‘All engines running…’, which punctuated the final ten seconds of the Apollo countdown.

You’ll also know that, like some foodstuffs, certain words can be disappointingly flavourless. Contrary to the insistence of their advertising campaigns I can take or leave Marmite; as for Quorn! - What IS that?…

‘Rollout’, ‘ramp up’, and ‘roadmap’ are currently among my least favourite flavours: buzz-words are almost always unsatisfying to the taste, that’s why they are quickly ‘so last week’.

Now, let’s cleanse the palate and experience some real flavours, whose lingering aftertastes Will continue to satisfy; you ready? -

‘Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st:’

If you have been affected by any of the issues dealt with in this blog, you can contact our helpline at:

www.shake-sceneshakespeare.co.uk

Mark Cassidy