Author Archives: Sylvia Morris

Stratford-upon-Avon’s celebration of Shakespeare on Film

Most people get their first introduction to Shakespeare in performance by watching not a live theatre production but a film. And the viewing figures for a Shakespeare film far outnumber even the most successful stage production. So the Shakespeare Film … Continue reading

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Stephen Fry’s Shakespeare: from Cambridge Footlights to Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe

It seems Stephen Fry can do no wrong. Whether he’s fronting his comedy series QI, writing both fiction and factual books, tweeting, creating radio and TV documentaries or acting, his status as national treasure is assured. Speaking openly about the … Continue reading

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Black History month: communities and visitors in Tudor England

October is Black History month, and this year’s focus on Shakespeare has included a number of discussions of the presence of non-white people in England in the early modern period. Historian Michael Wood’s piece suggests there was a black community in London, … Continue reading

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Stratford’s Band of Brothers: the Bensonian Company

One of the most significant events in the early years of the theatre in Stratford was the appointment of Frank Benson to run the festivals. From 1879 to 1885 the Memorial Theatre had been a receiving house for companies bringing … Continue reading

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Mapping Shakespeare’s imagined world

I recently visited the British Museum’s exhibition, Shakespeare: staging the World. It’s an amazing display of objects relating to the world Shakespeare knew, seen alongside video extracts of actors performing speeches from the plays, all arranged around a number of … Continue reading

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Restoration in Shakespeare’s church: the Clopton Chapel

Most visitors to Holy Trinity Church make a beeline for the monument to Shakespeare in the chancel. It’s not surprising, but doing so means visitors miss a number of other things in the church which have a Shakespeare connection. One … Continue reading

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Thomas Platter’s visit to Shakespeare’s theatre

On 21 September 1599 a Swiss tourist, Thomas Platter, visiting London, went to the newly-opened Globe Theatre to see a play. As it happened, he saw Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The occasion made quite an impression on him, so much so … Continue reading

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All the world’s a cinema

Summer’s drawing to a close, but there are still lots of Shakespeare treats to enjoy, though not perhaps out of doors. No matter where you live, your local cinema may be able to provide you with a fix of stage performance. … Continue reading

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What you will: a Shakespearean treat

Regular readers might remember my interest in one-man Shakespeare shows, which I wrote a post about just a year ago. One of the one-man shows I mentioned, Roger Rees’s What you Will is coming to the Apollo Theatre in London for … Continue reading

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Archaeology and Shakespeare: London, Leicester and Stratford

  Anyone going in search of Shakespeare’s London thirty years ago would have found little to satisfy them. The City and its surroundings has been occupied for hundreds, even thousands of years, and successive generations have built and rebuilt it. … Continue reading

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