For anyone interested, a new book on this subject was published this April: "Pronouncing Shakespeare" by David Crystal (Cambridge University Press). It describes last year's experiment at Shakespeare's Globe in which for 3 days in June their "original practices" production of "Romeo & Juliet" also included using the original pronunciation - which they are repeating this year with another play.

As regards the Brummy or Midlands accent, I seem to remember reading that there are several slang expressions used in Shakespeare which still occur in Midlands dialects to this day. I was in a production of "The Merchant of Venice" with a Brummie who told me that Gobbo (as in the name of the character Launcelot Gobbo) is still a popular nickname in the Midlands, and if you were coming out of a football match in the Birmingham area and called out "Eh, Gobbo !" several heads would turn to look to see if you were calling them.

- jeanie