Blogging Shakespeare

Most of Shakespeare’s aristocratic patrons would be intimately familiar with the arts of swordplay. Furthermore, Shakespeare as a trained actor would have studied fighting accurately to replicate it onstage. This is why Shakespeare takes many opportunities to mention duelling culture in his plays, especially within the comedies.  Shakespeare uses duel references to comic effect in [...]

The RSC’s  Such Tweet Sorrow, Comedy Central’s Fakespeare, and the meme blog Shakespeare Obsessed Sparrow: these are just a few of the manifestations of Shakespeare in the first decade of the 21st Century that viewers, listeners, tweeters, and surfers can experience. In our investigations to locate Shakespeare’s works and influence we encountered the outlandish, diverse, [...]

Living in Leicester has never been more exciting. Between people eager to see a car park, the influx of the international press conference, the portraits filling the windows of the City Council building, and the queues wrapping around the cathedral over the past two weeks, it is hard to ignore the atmosphere of delight and [...]

Like any other animal, human beings adopt a series of behaviours to show interest in mating in an appropriate way.  In the Elizabethan era, courtly love meant that a man strove to obtain his lady both through force of arms and through his skill in poetry. Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing despise [...]

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure is a strongly political play, a work embedded in the complexities of social reality, but its hero/villain Angelo, whose admiration for Isabella’s ascetic purity morphs into sexual desire and a rape-attempt, is in part intensely spiritual. This is not, however, a spirituality that is allowed to unfold fully. István Géher brings [...]

I recall that two New York Times articles about executive pay were entitled “A Rich Game of Thrones”. Neither article explained the metaphorical reference to the popular cable television show, Game of Thrones, a testimony to the show’s popularity. However, no matter how popular Game of Thrones is today, it has a long way to [...]

Though Shakespeare was not mentioned, there was a manifest and contrived theatricality about the press conference announcing that the skeleton unearthed in a Leicester car park was indeed that of King Richard III. Not that anyone could have doubted what the conclusion would be. How could the University, clearly pulling all the stops out to [...]

It was a sunny and very busy September afternoon at the Shakespeare Birthplace. Heritage open weekend was underway, and visitors were making the most of the sunshine in the beautiful Birthplace garden. A rather conspicuous addition to the crowd was a film crew and, of course, Michael Portillo wearing a very striking cobalt blue jacket. [...]

There are several plays of Shakespeare’s which contain a play with in a play. Such as Love’s Labour’s Lost and Hamlet. But the Taming of the Shrew is unique in that the play within the play takes up almost the whole play. Within this play The Taming of The Shrew is in fact the title of [...]