Category Archives: Shakespeare on Stage

Howard Blake’s music for Shakespeare in performance

This Friday, 6 June, Stratford-upon-Avon’s Orchestra of the Swan’s celebration of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth reaches its climax with a concert of music inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Three of the four concerts in the series have … Continue reading

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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

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Congratulations to David Bradley!

It’s truly wonderful news that actor David Bradley has won a BAFTA after a forty-year career that has spanned theatre, TV and film. Not surprisingly, the award he won is Best Supporting Actor in the hit TV drama Broadchurch. David … Continue reading

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Henry IV Part 1: relaying the live event

Earlier this week I attended the performance of Henry IV Part 1 performed at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, that was being simultaneously broadcast to cinemas around the UK, and is to be shown in schools, around the world and eventually … Continue reading

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Live relays and encore showings: representing the live event

A week or so ago I attended the live relay for Vikings: life and legend, the British Museum’s current blockbuster exhibition. I expected it to consist mostly of TV historians Bettany Hughes and Michael Wood walking us round the exhibition showing … Continue reading

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Shakespeare and his world: MOOC in progress

I’m very much enjoying the Shakespeare and his World MOOC created by the University of Warwick in collaboration with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, devised and presented by Professor Jonathan Bate. Last week the play being examined was The Merchant of … Continue reading

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Staging the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet

In an earlier post on the subject of Juliet’s balcony, I talked about the original staging of this scene, and how the scene came to be known  as “the balcony scene” even though in Elizabethan England the word balcony was … Continue reading

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Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene

Over the past few weeks a lively discussion has been going on at the Shakespeare noticeboard SHAKSPER under the title “Balcony”. The so-called balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet is probably Shakespeare’s most famous single scene, and no wonder as … Continue reading

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Falstaff and the loss of Merrie England

This week Sir Antony Sher takes on the role of one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters, Sir John Falstaff, in the first of the Henry IV plays, for the RSC. It’s a role that has attracted many of the greatest … Continue reading

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Taking Hamlet around the Globe

Touring has been an essential part of acting life for centuries: Shakespeare is thought to have seen his first plays as a child when a professional touring group came to Stratford-upon-Avon, and we assume he was one of the actors … Continue reading

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