Blogging Shakespeare

Paul Edmondson and I were interested to read Diana Price’s courteous response to my blog about her book Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography. Here are some comments. She writes that I do not ‘directly confront’ what she calls her ‘single strongest argument … the comparative analysis of documentary evidence supporting the biographies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.’ [...]

On Monday this week, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust hosted a webinar, ‘Reviewing Shakespeare’, an in-depth discussion I had with Dr Paul Prescott (University of Warwick) about how and why we review Shakespearian productions. What makes a good theatre review? Do we dare to ‘speak what we feel not what we ought to say’? (King Lear, [...]

Our recording of the rather heated webinar, ‘Proving Shakespeare’, which took place last Friday is now live. I am joined by Professor Stanley Wells C.B.E. and Dr Ros Barber. The webinar was sponsored by Cambridge University Press and marked the publication of Shakespeare Beyond Doubt: Evidence, Argument, Controversy. There is plenty of all three in [...]

Why should we review theatre? What makes a good theatre review? Do we dare to speak the truth about what we see? Join us for a free webinar on ‘Reviewing Shakespeare’ sponsored by Bloomsbury Publishing. It’s on Monday 6 May at 4.00pm (British Summer Time) and you can register for it by clicking here. Last [...]

Below is a collection of videos from the wonderful Shakespeare Birthday celebrations that were held in Stratford on Saturday to celebrate the life of our beloved William Shakespeare. The fabulous Dame Margaret Drabble brought the house down with her reminiscences and anecdotes about Shakespeare:   Dr. Paul Edmondson in conversation with Professor Carol Rutter about [...]

My own schooling was very different to Shakespeare’s. I didn’t have to arrive at school by 6.30am most mornings; I didn’t have to speak Latin and Greek in the classroom; I wasn’t ever threatened with the birch. I went to Huntington Comprehensive School in York and that is where I fell in love with Shakespeare. [...]

Last month the University of Notre Dame hosted its second annual lecture in honour of Professor Stanley Wells C.B.E. The event was presented in partnership with The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham and was generously supported by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, Notre Dame. You can watch the whole [...]

Last spring we launched A Year of Shakespeare – an energetic record and review of all 73 productions which took place in the World Shakespeare Festival. Today, those reviews, by 30 international contributors, are published as A Year of Shakespeare: Re-living the World Shakespeare Festival. It’s well illustrated and represents another innovation from Bloomsbury publishing [...]

At the back of the stage were three panels showing images of old boys from 1913 onwards. I was aware of the St George’s flag being included as part of the design. As I peered more closely, I noticed that some of the photographs of the boys had a similar red cross of St George [...]