In an episode dedicated to a great Shakespearean, Mr John Branston, Sheldrake drifts slightly from the one-play-one-idea tagline to focus on one character in this play: Queen Margaret. After her long march through the Henry VI plays, how does she wrest some control of the audience’s perspective from Richard and, in the end, does it make any difference?
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Few people in the world will have spent as many hours working on the delivery and performance of Shakespeare as Robert Price. After a career as an actor, he was the Senior Voice Tutor at RADA 2007-15 and a voice tutor at LAMDA for many years. He therefore has huge experience with and a rare perspective on how to ‘speak the speech’. A few weeks ago I managed to convince him that what he really wanted to be doing with a chunk of his busy schedule was talking to me about Shakespeare and the voice. I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation.
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In the first of two episodes on this mightiest of plays, Sheldrake compares the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with its sources, uncovering a tremendous amount of ‘literary upcycling’ but also a profound and imaginative tribute to the power of theatre at the play’s core.
First preview of Sheldrake on Shakespeare: Live! THIS FRIDAY 2nd June, 7pm at the Etcetera Theatre, Camden.
Oxford preview on Thursday 8th June, 7.30pm at the Old Fire Station, Oxford.
All previews and the Edinburgh run listed here: https://sheldrakeonshakespeare.com/
Listen again to my interview on BBC Radio Oxford here at 1:10:00: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fl3f14
In his return to the airwaves, Sheldrake considers the extraordinary popularity of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and concludes that it is the dark matter in the middle of this festive comedy sandwich that makes the play such a satisfying experience overall.
Sheldrake on Shakespeare Live! London previews:
Rosemary Branch Theatre 14th July
Barons Court Theatre 23rd July
Link to FringeMakers crowdfunder
Further reading for this episode:
Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye, 1957
Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy, CL Barber, 1959
The Tempest is a difficult play to nail down. It is also the most reinterpreted and adapted of Shakespeare’s plays. In this episode, Sheldrake pursues three themes – Love, Power and Art – and examines how they have been reinterpreted over the centuries.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
It’s difficult to know what, and particularly who, to talk about in Othello. Iago is a distraction, Othello likes to inflate his own sense of himself, whilst Desdemona can seem even less than she is. Which is odd, because the characters too find themselves not quite knowing how to interpret what they see in front of them. Or they misunderstand completely and interpret too easily. Their perspective is awry. And because Shakespeare wants to show us just how easy it is to do that, he makes audience after audience lose their perspective too.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Twelfth Night seems to be everyone’s favourite Shakespeare play. Why is this the case? Could it be something to do with the fact that it is a play about playing? This play is a hymn to the pleasure and virtue of playing and play wins over anti-play, though of course the real motto is that it’s the taking part that counts.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
King Lear is a work of obvious genius, so what to say about it in fifteen minutes that can illuminate it? Using the historical idea of service, and the relationship between service and – believe it or not – love, we can get a handle on all sorts of relationships in the play. And Sheldrake thinks these handles can help us whether we are in a classroom, sitting room or rehearsal.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Globe Education is launching its new season, a rich array of theatrical and academic events culminating in a two-day conference next April. Sheldrake went along to the Globe to interview Dr Will Tosh to talk about the theme of the season, namely Amity, and some of the upcoming events, including performances at the Inns of Court. Amity is the Renaissance ideal of friendship and if you know the magic of, in Cole Porter’s memorable phrase, a perfect blendship, then tune in for some reflection on the subject.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
We all have an image in our mind’s eye of Shakespearean performance during Shakespeare’s lifetime, but what happened between then and now? Why didn’t the Restoration court like Shakespeare? Who is David Garrick? For answers to all these questions and more, seek no further.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Shakespeare nicked stuff from everywhere; prose narratives, history books, other plays. Sheldrake rattles through a few of the old chestnuts and a few of the lesser-known borrowings, showing Shakespeare as a great adapter of stories.
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A very great number of Shakespeare performances in Britain are conducted by amateur companies. People gathering together to do Shakespeare for fun. The open-air festival is a particularly popular brand of this. Sheldrake has been involved with the Pendley Shakespeare Festival for some time, and from this year’s Festival he uncovers the meanings of Shakespeare that emerge in these kinds of events.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Testing the patience of listeners once again by talking about someone who isn’t Shakespeare, Sheldrake investigates the peculiar career of John Marston; satirist, dramatist, tragicomedian. He had some great successes, then there was a bit of a lean patch, then he appears to have thrown in the towel. Why? In one word – tragicomedy.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
The soliloquy is one of Shakespeare’s most recognisable and distinctive theatrical devices. It is in no small part responsible for his fame as a dramatist of human psychology. Was Julius Caesar the gateway in Shakespeare’s soliloquising art between the 1590s and the 1600s? Sheldrake takes a close look at a few speeches from the play.
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For many years, Globe Education has been staging performances with scripts of the plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries in a series called Read Not Dead. They have worked their way through over 200 plays, but the opening of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse means they now have a permanent and splendid home. To decide which play should be the jewel in the crown of the current season, they held a husting featuring four plays backed by four teams. Sheldrake was there.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Attempts to reconstruct the original performance circumstances of Renaissance plays, either literally or imaginatively, have been a constant companion to fascination about the literature. How did these plays actually get put together? What was the process? Would the actors recognise the concept of a rehearsal process? Sheldrake investigates.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Where did the magic happen? We’ve all heard of the Globe, but what did it mean for a play to be written for one playhouse rather than another? And what, for that matter, did it mean for Shakespeare to be attached to the Globe for most of his career? Sheldrake gallops through some answers.
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The current production of Titus Andronicus at the Globe Theatre in London has the sort of theatrical courage that all Globe productions, indeed all Shakespeare productions, should have. Much like the play, this production takes risks, and they pay off big time.
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London was growing up fast in Shakespeare’s day. Whether you’re familiar with Shakespeare or not, Timon of Athens seems a very peculiar play. But armed with some context, its connection with Renaissance finance and city drama become apparent.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Henry VIII is a little known play, but it bears witness to John Fletcher’s apprenticeship to William Shakespeare. And perhaps it’s not that bad a play after all.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
The scarcity of scenery on Shakespeare’s stage does not mean that there were no impressive visual effects. One way of awing an audience was with fine costume. As a primer to the full Henry VIII episode next week, Sheldrake describes the impact of costume in two scenes from that play.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
In the first of a series of supplementary podcasts, Sheldrake talks about the boys who created Shakespeare’s female roles on-stage.
Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
As You Like It is liked by audiences, disliked by academics. What then does this tell us about how crucial performance is to the success of the text? Consequently, Sheldrake argues, engaging with the performance of this play and others should be not only a pleasure for the serious Shakespearean, but also a duty.
Now available on iTunes : http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm
Sheldrake on Shakespeare 