Tag Archives: Victoria and Albert Museum

Henry Wallis: a pre-Raphaelite’s views of Shakespeare’s Stratford

Henry Wallis isn’t one of the best-known of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, barely getting a mention in books about Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Millais, Holman Hunt et al, but one of his paintings is universally-known and classed as a masterpiece. The Death … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Legacy, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Henry Wallis: a pre-Raphaelite’s views of Shakespeare’s Stratford

Peter Brook at the V&A

On Saturday I was lucky to be able to attend a symposium at the Victoria and Albert Museum entitled Peter Brook: Place, Process, Performance, Politics. It was part of the Museum’s Performance Festival and this investigation of Brook’s impact on … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Peter Brook at the V&A

“Go ply thy needle”: embroidery in Tudor England

One of the great pleasures of the BBC series Wolf Hall, adapted from Hilary Mantel’s novels, has been to admire the costumes worn by the king and his court, from the scarlet robes of Cardinal Wolsey and the magnificence of … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Vivien Leigh, Shakespeare’s lass unparalleled

In the theatre gardens in Stratford-upon-Avon is a silver birch tree planted in memory of Vivien Leigh, one of several dedicated to people who have worked at the theatres. At its base is a stone tablet, with her dates of birth … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cheek by Jowl and Shakespeare’s Globe in the news

Two theatre companies which have made their mark by performing Shakespeare have recently made announcements about future programming and projects. First, Cheek by Jowl. Since they were formed in 1981 by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod the company has done … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Cheek by Jowl and Shakespeare’s Globe in the news

Remembering Sir Laurence Olivier

Friday 11 July 2014 is the 25th anniversary of Laurence Olivier’s death in 1989. By chance I was in the RST that evening and before the performance artistic director Terry Hands delivered an onstage tribute to Olivier. At the end … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Shakespeare on Stage, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Motley’s the only wear: Shakespeare and design

The name Motley will be familiar to anyone interested in twentieth-century theatre design, or in the history of Shakespeare on stage. This all-female group designed for straight plays, Broadway musicals, ballets, operas and even films over a period of forty … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Motley’s the only wear: Shakespeare and design

Stratford’s Elizabethan wall-paintings

In 1927, during renovation work in a building in Stratford-upon-Avon, an important discovery was made. The White Swan Hotel was being modernised by the hotel group Trust Houses Limited, and workmen found evidence of surviving wall-paintings concealed behind panelling. Work … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Shakespeare and the brain: Conducting Shakespeare

An unusual experiment is to be carried out at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on 2 May as part of the museum’s celebrations for Shakespeare’s 450th birthday. Called Conducting Shakespeare, It’s designed to find out how watching a performance of … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Legacy | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Shakespeare’s February face

At the end of the week we can officially start looking forward to spring, with St Valentine’s Day on the 14th February. One of our regular readers at the Shakespeare Centre Library some years ago was a retired gentleman who … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Legacy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Shakespeare’s February face