Monthly Archives: August 2012

Shakespeare and the Paralympics

We’re now into the Paralympics, and once again Shakespeare is a highlight of the cultural celebrations. The pop-up Shakespeare project is bringing fifty actors including some who are deaf or disabled onto the streets of London. Performing extracts of speeches … Continue reading

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Finding Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden

Even during Shakespeare’s lifetime, the ancient Forest of  Arden was in decline, and I’ve always undertood that all remnants of the forest were long gone, cleared in order to make way for the expansion of human habitation and agriculture. When … Continue reading

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Remembering Shakespeare on stage

Remember thee! Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. When the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opened in 1879 it was designed to be both a memorial to Shakespeare and a living breathing theatre. Among the … Continue reading

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The rule of law: Anders Breivik and Richard III

This morning the court in Norway has ruled that Anders Behring Breivik, the killer of 77 Norwegians last summer, is sane. He will be sent to high-security prison from where he hopes to be able to argue that his views … Continue reading

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Shakespeare in the Park

Unlikely as it seems given the weather, people have been performing outdoors in Britain for hundreds of years, well before the building of purpose-built theatres in Elizabethan London. The medieval mystery cycles were performed in many towns and cities on mobile … Continue reading

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Emptying the stage: experimenting with Shakespeare

It is up to us to capture [the audience’s] attention and compel its belief. To do so we must prove that there will be no trickery, nothing hidden. We must open our empty hands and show that really there is … Continue reading

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Sight and blindness in Shakespeare

One of the most striking items discussed in the BBC’s radio series Shakespeare’s Restless World earlier this year is the reliquary containing the eye of an executed Jesuit priest. It appealed in a number of ways: its gruesome history, the … Continue reading

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Becoming a courtier: Castiglione, Shakespeare and Richard III

Earlier this week Amanda Vickery, in her radio programme  On… Men, looked at the concept of the ideal man, defined in Italy in the sixteenth century, which remained a standard for centuries. You can listen again here for a few … Continue reading

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O this learning, what a thing it is!

Last week the biennial International Shakespeare Conference was held at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. With only space for two hundred and thirty, places are strictly limited. Now technology is being used to open this exclusive conference up to anyone … Continue reading

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Updating Timon: Simon Russell Beale at the National

Theatre programmes don’t often include an article written by the leading man in the production. Most actors and directors let their work speak for them, and drawing attention to their past successes might be courting disaster. Actors can be a … Continue reading

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