Shakespeare and Brecht: A Conversation with Stephen Unwin
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 is part of the Arden Performance Companion series so is slanted towards practical suggestions about how performance of Shakespeare can be achieved through Brechtian techniques.
Link to Stephen’s website: www.stephenunwin.uk
Link to online retailers for ‘Shakespeare and Brecht’:
Bloomsbury UK: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/shakespeare-and-brecht-9781350419612/
Bloomsbury US: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shakespeare-and-brecht-9781350419636/
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Brecht-Practical-Performance-Companions/dp/1350419613/ref=sr_1_1
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Stephen Unwin is an award-winning British theatre and opera director. He has directed almost 100 professional productions and worked with many well-established actors and singers, as well as developing the careers of many younger ones. He studied at the Uni-versity of Cambridge.
In the 1980s Stephen worked at the Almeida, the Traverse in Edinburgh, in repertoire theatre and at the National Theatre Studio. In 1993,he founded English Touring Theatre, for whom he directed more than 30 productions of classical and new plays, many of which transferred to London. In 2008, he became Artistic Director of the new Rose Thea-tre in Kingston, which he ran until January 2014. He has worked extensively at the Thea-tre Royal Bath and has directed more than 20 operas. Ten of his productions have been seen in the West End.
Stephen has taught in conservatoires and universities in Britain and America and written 10 books on theatre and drama, including Poor Naked Wretches, a study of Shakespeare’s working people (Reaktion 2022). He has also written five original plays: All Our Children was premiered at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2017 and staged in New York in 2019, and Laughing Boy opened at Jermyn Street in 2024 and played at the Theatre Royal Bath.
Stephen is a campaigner for the rights and dignities of learning-disabled people and Beau-tiful Lives: How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong, is published by Wildfire in June 2025.
www.stephenunwin.uk