Blogging Shakespeare

I recently had the pleasure of seeing both the young person’s Hamlet and the puppet version of the Tempest at the newly opened swan theatre with the RSC . Both productions were recommended for young people and both had much to appeal to their target audience. But even more interesting than the excellent plays was […]

I read theatre reviews for all sorts of reasons. Often I want to know what a show is like which I know I won’t be able to see. Sometimes I like to know whether my own thoughts about a particular production are shared more widely. There is a certain feeling of justice being done (isn’t […]

On Wednesday 23 March the SBT’s own Nick Walton dazzled an enthusiastic audience in the Wolfson Hall with a lecture on the late Stratford director Glen Byam Shaw (who, as I just learned, died on the day that I was born(!) Feeling old enough now?). Painstakingly researched and passionately delivered, Nick’s paper was based on […]

In February and March we have been busy with debating projects for pupils aged 15-18. I have asked one of our student helpers to tell us more about her experience working with GCSE age pupils getting them debating Shakespeare here at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: So over to Thea… “Ten teenagers giggle as they slip off their […]

To the Bodleian Library on Saturday to see the Shelley’s Ghost exhibition.   Percy Bysshe Shelley lived fast and died young (drowned at the pathetically young age of thirty). The exhibition traces through books, papers, and actual objects Shelley’s short-lived, dramatic life, and its lasting impact. We learn about his influence, his infamous profile (including […]

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s own Nick Walton will deliver the second lunchtime lecture of the season at 1pm on this upcoming Wednesday, 23 March. Nick will be using his 2008 essay on director Glen Byam Shaw, published in John Russell Brown’s collection of essays, The Routledge Companion to Directors’ Shakespeare, as a way into the […]

Guest Blog from Andrew Cowie: I am delivering a series of schools workshops on Romeo And Juliet at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust so I was glad to finally catch up with Rupert Goold’s production at the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre which Michael Billington described as ‘the most volatile and exciting Romeo and Juliet I have […]

After the resounding magical success of the Little Angel Theatre’s Venus and Adonis puppet play for the R.S.C.’s Complete Works Festival in 2006, I was expecting an enchanted, toy-box-style theatre with a magical island entirely populated by puppets. There was no ‘on-stage’ toy theatre and eight actual actors were involved. But the result was still […]

In the past year, the Arden Shakespeare series added two plays to its canon that extend themselves to the fascinating textual conversation for which the Arden Shakespeare takes responsibility to bring to the fore. These plays, never before included in a major Shakespeare series – Double Falsehood and Sir Thomas More – contribute to the […]

The Centre has been a hive of activity this week with students from around the country debating all things Shakespearian in our “Great Shakespeare Debate”, run in collaboration with The English Speaking Union.  Our teaching rooms, corridors and stairwells have been humming with the buzz and whistle of racing minds, and tripping tongues. The students […]