Episodes

Episode 203: We now stay in the world of the Elizabethan interpretation of classical history and myth with Ben Jonson’s next play ‘Sejanus His Fall’. Rooted more firmly in history than myth Jonson’s play uses the story of a power struggle motivated by personal ambition to look at the nature of power, justice and politics. This was quite evidently dangerous ground for a playwright already known for his clashes with the authorities, but it was not just that commentary of contemporary politic...

Episode 202: For today’s guest episode it is a very warm welcome back to Racheal Aanstad. You will remember that Racheal and I have discussed Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the podcast and now she returns to discuss ‘Troilus and Cressida’. As you will hear Racheal was able to bring thoughts about the history of the play and it’s sources, particularly Homer’s Iliad, which, I think, really enhances our understanding of this challenging play. Rachel Aanstad is a writer, ...

Episode 201 ‘Troilus and Cressida’, is a challenging piece by pretty much everybody’s estimation. Although it is no surprise that Shakespeare looked to the Homeric tales for his next inspiration which part of that story he chose to dramatize perhaps is and what he chose to do with it has perplexed commentators ever since. Ambiguous is the word most often used, but ultimately opinions range through ‘failure’ to ‘misunderstood’ to ‘modernistic’, and just about everything else in-between. ...

Episode 200 For today’s guest episode it is a welcome return to the podcast for Stephen Unwin. I spoke to Stephen earlier in this Shakespeare and Jonson season to discuss his book ‘Poor Naked Wretches’ which examines the way Shakespeare portrayed working people and their significance in the plays. For his next published work Stephen has produced a work that examines Berthold Brecht’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare and which makes the case for reading the two playwrights together. This...

Episode 199: The line I have used for the title of today’s episode is spoken by Feste the fool, a central character in ‘Twelfth Night’. Fools have already played significant roles in Shakespeare’s previous plays and as you will hear there are possible connections between them and Feste, but significant as he is, and fools will be in forthcoming Shakespeare plays, there is so much more to Twelfth Night than just that one character. It is a play where other Shakespearean comedic characterist...

Episode 198: As Ben Jonson was writing ‘The Poetaster’ in 1601 the Elizabethan age was drawing to a close. Elizabeth would live until March 1603, but by 1601 any hope of a natural heir was long past and her court and councillors were playing a waiting game and with different degrees of secrecy were trying to manipulate the situation over the accession to their own advantage. Jonson, I’m sure, had an eye and an ear on those politics, but the comedy he was writing was more concerned with the...

Episode 197: For today’s guest episode I had the pleasure of talking to Simon Sandys Winsch, author of the Illustrated Tudor Dictionary. Given Simon’s broad knowledge of the period I took the opportunity to talk to him about some of the entries in the dictionary that give us a view of what life was like for the Elizabethan’s who went to the London theatres. We started by going back a few years into the reign of Henry 8th and discussed actions of his, the legacy of which the Elizabethans we...

Episode 196: Following on from the humours plays ‘Every Man In His Humour’ and ‘Every Man Out of His Humour’ Johnson stayed with comedy for his next offering, but rather than returning to the public stage and the adult playing companies he turned his attention to the court and the children’s companies that were very much in vogue at the time. Jonson, one feels, was always searching for popularity, but as you will hear there were some other very good artistic reasons for his choices, but certa...

Episode 195 Last time I completed my review of ‘Hamlet’, although it is probably wrong to say that one’s thoughts on Hamlet are ever complete. I am not alone in finding that every time I see the play, and it is I think, as it is for many, the Shakespeare play I have seen most often, I find something new in it to think on. To complete this quartet of episodes on the play we have the second part of my conversation with Colin David Reese about the play and in this segment, which is much short...

Episode 194: Last time I left things hanging for Hamlet as, having seen the ghost of his father and resolved on revenge, he had seen his planning go awry as he mistakenly killed the old councillor Polonius while he hid behind a wall hanging. We have seen his daughter Ophelia begin her descent into madness, school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become embroiled in Hamlet’s feigned madness and Claudius prompted into a desire to pray, having seen the players perform a piece that replica...

Episode 193 For today’s guest episode it is a very welcome return to the podcast for Colin David Reese, who I last spoke to in early 2023, when we discussed his play ‘Shakespeare Unbound: A Gift to the Future’ and Shakespeare in general. If you missed those episodes you will find them as part of season five, first released in February and April 2023. On this occasion I asked Colin to discuss Shakespeare’s use of language, with particular reference to Hamlet, and how that language is ...

Episode 192: And so, we come to perhaps the biggest challenge in all of Shakespeare's work, ‘The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark’. Over the next two episodes and a special guest episode I hope I can get close to doing this monumental play justice. The dating of the play and the complication of the ‘ur-Hamlet’ The early print history of the play and the three versions The possible sources for the play The opening of the play The character and significance of Fortinbras...

Episode 191: For today’s guest episode it is a welcome return to Ricky Dukes, artistic director of Lazarus Theatre Company. Following on from our conversation about ‘Henry V’ Ricky and I went on to discuss ‘Julius Caesar’. Not surprisingly our conversation pulled out some alternative points to those I raised in my episode on the play, especially when it came to talking about aspects of staging the play and the impact of the female roles in the play, which I did not mention in any detail pr...

Episode 190: 'Julius Caesar' has proved to be one of Shakespeare’s most malleable plays through the centuries as it’s political narrative has been applied to just about every period of history since it was first performed, either in the moment or retrospectively. In most people’s estimation it is one of Shakespeare’s truly great plays, but that does not mean that there is always a consensus of opinion over the details of the plot or the motivations of the main characters, but by now that i...

Episode 189: For today’s guest episode it is my pleasure to welcome Dr Iman Sheeha to the podcast. Her book ‘Neighbourly Relations in early modern drama has been published recently so it was a great opportunity to talk to her about her research after she had just completed a summer tour of conferences. Her work is a close examination of neighbourly relationships in early modern English drama, placing a select number of plays alongside other contemporary materials such as wills, pamph...

Episode 188: Following on from the last episode before the run of summer guest conversations we take a sharp swerve from ‘Henry V’ to ‘As You Like It’. Although we cannot be quite sure about the chronology in which Shakespeare wrote his plays, or how much the writing of one crossed over with the writing of another, whatever the precise order it is pretty clear that Shakespeare could move freely between the History and Comedy genres and within those how he was always pushing at the edges of th...

Episode 187: This episode is both an ending and a beginning. An ending because it is the last of the recent run of consecutive guest episodes – next time we will be returning to Shakespeare, Jonson and their plays – but it is also the first of what I hope will be a series of guest episodes attached to each of the very significant Shakespeare plays that are coming up soon. With the very well-known and arguably greatest of Shakespeare’s plays the task of providing some meaningful commentary ...

Episode 186: In this continuing series of guest episodes, it is a very welcome return to the podcast for Tim Fitzhigham. You may remember I spoke to Tim in episode 140 about his work at the Kings Lynn Guildhall where the Elizabethan period Stage had recently been uncovered and hit the headlines in the UK as a stage that Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men had actually played on as they toured the country. Since then the work has continued and through the summer of 2025 it has been possible for th...

Episode 185: For today’s guest episode it’s a warm welcome to the podcast for Christine and Jonathan Hainsworth, co-authors of the recently published book ‘The Shakespeare Ladies Club’. Their book explores the lives of four ladies who were crucial in ensuring the original work of Shakespeare was not forgotten in the 18th Century and beyond. In 1736, these three ladies of quality, two from the aristocracy and one a writer who ran a stationery shop, formed the ‘Shakespeare Ladies Club’...

Episode 184: Today’s episode is part of my summer run of guest episodes and feels very special as rather than talking about a long dead playwright I got to talk to a living one. Sara Farrington is a New York based playwright who has written an adaptation of ‘The Trojan Women’ by Euripides, called ‘A Trojan Woman’, which has had several productions in Europe and Nort America and Sara kindly agreed to come onto the podcast to discuss her interpretation of Euripides. Sara Farrington is ...

Episode 183: Today’s episode is the first of a short run of guest episodes to see us through the end of the English summer and first up is Daniel Swift, author of ‘The Dream Factory: London’s First Playhouse and the making of William Shakespeare’. Given that title I don’t think Daniel’s book needs any further introduction other than to say that I found it a fascinating read and I hope this episode gives. You a taster of Daniel’s work and the research he has undertaken. Daniel Swift i...

Episode 182: Although it feels like a while since Shakespeare had produced a history play, we must remember that all the plays I have discussed so far were written and played in a very compressed timescale. If we take Henry 6th part 1 as being from 1591 then eight years and eighteen plays later, we get to Henry 5th. The sources for the play The dating of the play The printing history of the play The early performance history of the play A brief synopsis of the play A p...

Episode 181: For today’s guest episode it’s a pleasure to welcome Laurie Johnson to the podcast. Laurie’s book ‘Leicester’s Men and their Plays’ is a fascination study of one of the most influential of the playing troupes of the Elizabethan period and the story of how they lived and functioned under one of the most influential nobles in the land. As you will hear Laurie’s research to try to draw an ever-better picture of the players and playing in the period is ongoing and leading to some ...

Episode 180: Much Ado About Nothing remains one of the more popular comedies where the characters of Benedick and Beatrice are usually thought of as the leading characters, but this play is much more of an ensemble piece than might be usually remembered. The dating of the play The print history of the play Early performances of the play The sources for the play The significance of the title A Synopsis of the play The views of the male character, all soldiers, in the pl...