Subscribe to the blog
Search the site
-
Latest posts
Categories
- Legacy (699)
- Plays and Poems (174)
- Shakespeare on Stage (302)
- Shakespeare's World (328)
- Sources (43)
- Stratford-upon-Avon (331)
- Uncategorized (2)
Recent comments
- Richard Morris on King Charles III, Shakespeare, and coronations
- Roger Gregory on A sad farewell to Peter Brook
- mary beth shipley on Shakespeare’s Come Home!
Tags
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- As You Like it
- BBC
- Ben Jonson
- British Library
- British Museum
- Christmas
- David Garrick
- education
- Edwards' Boys
- First Folio
- Folger Shakespeare Library
- Gregory Doran
- Hamlet
- Henry V
- Holy Trinity Church
- Jonathan Bate
- Julius Caesar
- Kenneth Branagh
- King Edward VI School
- King Lear
- London
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Macbeth
- music
- National Theatre
- Othello
- Peter Brook
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Royal Shakespeare Company
- Shakespeare
- Shakespeare's Globe
- Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
- Shakespeare Club
- Shakespeare Club of Stratford-upon-Avon
- Shakespeare Institute
- Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
- Simon Russell Beale
- spring
- Stratford-upon-Avon
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Tempest
- The Winter's Tale
More blog posts
- May 2023
- February 2023
- September 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- August 2021
- April 2021
- February 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- August 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
Category Archives: Plays and Poems
Shakespeare’s sonnets
I’ve only occasionally written in this blog about Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and then mostly about possible biographical references in them, for instance to Anne Hathaway or to the death of his son Hamnet. These are hard to avoid: for hundreds of … Continue reading
Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems
Tagged David Schalkwyk, Folger Shakespeare Library, Jonathan Bate, Sonnets
8 Comments
Parodying Hamlet
The best-known play based on Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is Tom Stoppard’s brilliant 1966 play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It follows the plot of Hamlet from the point of view of the pair of hapless and confused courtiers, owing much … Continue reading
Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems
Tagged David Piper, Hamlet, Tom Stoppard, W S Gilbert, World War 2
2 Comments
Love’s Labour’s Won?
The Royal Shakespeare Company has just announced its plans for the season September 2014-March 2015. In the main Royal Shakespeare Theatre a beautifully put-together programme will contribute to the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War. There will be two Shakespeare … Continue reading
Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems, Shakespeare's World, Stratford-upon-Avon
Tagged Christopher Luscombe, Edward Bennett, Francis Meres, Gregory Doran, Ian Judge, Love's Labour's Lost, Love's Labour's Won, Much Ado About Nothing, Palladis Tamia, Phil Porter, The Christmas Truce
Comments Off on Love’s Labour’s Won?
Finding Shakespeare’s “lost play”, Cardenio
Palgrave Macmillan recently sent me a review copy of their new book The Creation and re-creation of Cardenio: Performing Shakespeare, Transforming Cervantes, edited by Terri Bourus and Gary Taylor. Cardenio is now universally known as “Shakespeare’s lost play” and although … Continue reading
Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems
Tagged Brean Hammond, Cardenio, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Double Falsehood, Gary Taylor, Gregory Doran, Tiffany Stern
Comments Off on Finding Shakespeare’s “lost play”, Cardenio
Staging the caskets: The Merchant of Venice
As a man of the theatre, Shakespeare must always have written his scenes with an idea of how they would be performed, though given the limited technical scope of theatres at the time he does sometimes seem to have made it … Continue reading
In memory of Reg Foakes
I’m sitting here with my Arden Edition of King Lear, probably the most authoritative edition of the play ever published. Its editor, Reg Foakes (R A Foakes on the title page) died over Christmas at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon aged … Continue reading
Shakespeare, collaboration and the apocryphal plays
The question “how many plays did Shakespeare write?” is not an easy one to answer. The First Folio includes 36 plays, but I’ve always been intrigued by the list of additional plays on the title page of the Third Folio … Continue reading
Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems
Tagged apocrypha, attribution, Collaborative Plays, editions, Eric Rasmussen, First Folio, Jonathan Bate, Peter Kirwan, stylometry, Third Folio, Will Sharpe
Comments Off on Shakespeare, collaboration and the apocryphal plays
Shakespeare and China
Shakespeare and China was taken as the subject for this month’s meeting of the Shakespeare Club, at which the speaker was the President of the Club, Professor Michael Dobson, Head of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. He began by talking … Continue reading
Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems, Shakespeare on Stage
Tagged Alexander Huang, Asia, China, Michael Dobson, MIT
Comments Off on Shakespeare and China
The Tempest in our time and its own
A great authority on Shakespeare, the academic Anne Barton, died a few days ago. She always wrote with an awareness of the play as a piece of theatre and her thoughts were often reflected in her husband, John Barton’s productions. … Continue reading
Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems, Shakespeare on Stage, Shakespeare's World
Tagged Anne Barton, Caliban, Erin Sullivan, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, In Our Time, Jonathan Bate, Melvyn Bragg, Montaigne, Night waves, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, The Tempest
Comments Off on The Tempest in our time and its own
Ian Richardson and Richard II’s ring
On Friday morning BBC Radio 4’s Today programme included a feature about theatre history relating to David Tennant’s current role as Richard II. On the press night Tennant received a package from Ian Richardson’s widow Maroussia Frank containing the ring … Continue reading