Category Archives: Shakespeare on Stage

Memory, forgetting, and performance

Rebekah Brooks and others testifying to the Leveson Inquiry claim to have staggeringly poor memories of events. Zoe Williams, in her Guardian article of 11 May commented “You couldn’t live a life with this bad a memory. Never mind that you’d … Continue reading

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The Comedy of Errors

The RSC’s Shipwreck trilogy is subtitled “What country friends is this?” and in the production of The Comedy of Errors directed by the Palestinian Amir Nizar Zuabi, it’s a question that the audience might easily find themselves asking. Set in … Continue reading

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Julius Caesar: Shakespeare’s African play

In this year of firsts, Greg Doran, who’s about to take over the running of the Royal Shakespeare Company, is creating a few firsts of his own. He’s currently rehearsing the first RSC Shakespeare production featuring a completely black cast. … Continue reading

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Global Shakespeares

The World Shakespeare Festival, which has just begun, is already opening our eyes to performances of Shakespeare from some of the most remote corners of the world. Nothing does more to prove that Shakespeare is the world’s dramatist than productions … Continue reading

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Music for Shakespeare’s Henry V: Val Brodie’s discoveries

One of the quiet pleasures of being a librarian is the satisfaction of finding an elusive fact for a reader, or helping them make a discovery about a previously unrecognised item. The Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive holds quite a number … Continue reading

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Gregory Doran: Royal Shakespeare Company Artistic Director in waiting

Today Gregory Doran (universally known as Greg), has been appointed as the new Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the most important job in the world of Shakespeare. Those who have been watching Greg for the last two decades … Continue reading

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Shakespeare’s shipwrecks

Last week on Twitter, someone drily pointed out in response to the RSC’s new season, that Shakespeare never wrote a shipwreck trilogy. The What country friends is this? season is certainly unusual, and the cynical might say it’s a marketing … Continue reading

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Edward Alleyn’s legacy and Shakespeare’s theatre

Most of what we know about the elusive world of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre is found in one unique collection of manuscripts. These are known as the Henslowe-Alleyn archive, working theatrical documents created by impresario Philip Henslowe and his illustrious … Continue reading

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Harley Granville Barker and Shakespeare

A new play about the great man of the theatre Harley Granville Barker is now playing at the Hampstead Theatre, London. As explained on the Radio 4 Today programme on 29 February Granville Barker virtually invented the idea of the director, … Continue reading

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Sorrow, pitiful sorrow; the burning of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre

In the early afternoon of Saturday 6 March 1926 a man was cycling down Chapel Lane in Stratford when he spotted smoke coming from the roof of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in front of him. He immediately took action to … Continue reading

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