The Meaning of Headlines: 'barmy' - entertainment

The Arts section of Sky News online published an article on 23 April 2016 with the headline: ‘Barmy For The Bard: Dame Judi On Her passion.’ What does barmy mean?

Oxford Dictionaries defines ‘barmy’ as mad, crazy, or extremely foolish – or even stupid, silly, half-witted, or witless. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as ‘full of froth and ferment’ – a British term originating in the 15th century.

The article is about actors Dame Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh commenting on the appeal of the ‘bard’ – the British playwright William Shakespeare – on the 400th anniversary of his death in 1616. Dame Judi describes the first five years of her acting career performing Shakespeare plays on stage in England. ‘He’s my passion,’ she said, ‘he knew everything about love, jealousy, anger, ambition – everything.’

The article mentions the celebrations at the Globe Theatre in London where 37 screens will line the banks of the river Thames, each showing a Shakespeare film shot in an international location.

The Scorecard for the Sky News headline is 49%. The term ‘barmy’ is not mentioned in the article, and the three sentences quoted by Dame Judi Dench do not mention how crazy she is about Shakespeare. She says he is her passion. Does having a passion make a person crazy for that object or person? The Oxford Dictionaries defines ‘passion’ as a ‘strong and barely controllable emotion.’ Therefore passion doesn’t necessarily equate with barmy.

And ‘barmy’ characters and actions were plenty in Shakespeare’s plays – Macbeth’s visions, Lear’s madness, and then there’s Hamlet, rejected by Ophelia. Polonius says Hamlet ‘fell into a sadness, then into a fast, thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, thence to a lightness, and, by this declension, into the madness wherein now he raves, and all we mourn for.’ But was Hamlet’s madness genuine or just an act? Didn’t Kenneth Branagh play Hamlet and didn’t Judi Dench play the sleep-walking Lady Macbeth? Would Branagh be barmier than Dench for Shakespeare?

The article could have further explored the meaning of ‘barmy’ and the definitions such as foolish, half-witted, and witless. These indeed are expressions that Shakespeare used often in his plays, such as ‘Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.’ But, as Shakespeare also said, ‘Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.’

http://news.sky.com/story/1683733/barmy-for-the-bard-dame-judi-on-her-passion

MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).