Season 6
Feb. 10, 2025
Boy Actors: A Conversation with Roberta Barker
In the third part of this series of guest episodes before we get back to continuing the journey through the Shakespeare and Jonson cannon, we are going deep into the world of the renaissance period boy actors, or perhaps, as…
Feb. 3, 2025
The Development of Roman Theatre: A Reprised Conversation with Dr Elodie Palliard
Episode 154 As you know form last week’s episode I’m running a short series of guest episodes before we get back to continuing the journey through the Shakespeare and Jonson cannon. Today’s episode is a repeat of episode 30…
Jan. 27, 2025
Playing with Shakespeare: A Conversation with Charles Moseley
Episode 153 Today’s guest episode serves as a great precursor to what is to come. The discussion that you are about to hear with Charles Mosely focusses on Shakespeare as a man of the theatre and discusses how the plays wer…
Jan. 20, 2025
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Conversation With Rachel Aanstad
Episode 152 Following on from my thoughts on A Midsummer Night’s Dream last time I’m very pleased to welcome back Rachel Aanstad to the podcast for further thoughts on the play. You may remember from our previous conversati…
Jan. 13, 2025
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: ‘Man Is but An Ass If He Go About to Expound This Dream’
Episode 151 Having finished with Ben Jonson’s biography we can now go back in time just a little to work through Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s plays in more detail. By the early 1590s was then the man of the theatrical moment,…
Jan. 6, 2025
A Bawdy Twelfth Night: A Conversation with Rachel Aanstad
Episode 150: For this very appropriately timed guest episode, which is released on the 6th January, Rachel Aanstad kindly agreed to come on the podcast and talk about the Elizabethan twelfth night traditions and Shakespeare’…
Dec. 30, 2024
The Life of Ben Jonson Part Six: ‘Posterity Pays Every Man His Honour’
Episode 149 The life story of Ben Jonson concludes with events after the publication of his first folio to his death in 1637. ‘Bartholomew Fair’, a different sort of Jonson play. The finances of the court become more problem…
Dec. 16, 2024
The Life of Ben Jonson part Five: ‘Tis the House of Fame, Sir’
Episode 148: The life of Ben Jonson continues after he is released from prison after the publication of 'Eastward Ho!' Jonson’s possible involvement in the gunpowder plot and it’s aftermath. Jonson writes a masque for the ma…
Dec. 9, 2024
'The Divas Gift': A Conversation With Pamela Allen Brown
One of the generally accepted facts about theatre in the time of Shakespeare and Jonson is that boy actors took female roles and women were banned from appearing on the stage. This is in fact only partly true and my guest f…
Dec. 2, 2024
The Life of Ben Jonson part Four: The Playhouse, the Court, and ‘The Masque of Blackness’
Episode 146: The banning of printed satire. ‘Every Man Out of His Humour’ is produced by The Lord Chamberlin’s Men. ‘Cynthia’s Revels’ is performed at court but is not well received. ‘Poetester’ is performed at the Blackfria…
Nov. 25, 2024
The Life of Ben Jonson part Three: ‘There is no Greater Hell Than to be a Prisoner of Fear’
Episode 145: Continuing the story of Ben Jonson’s life from the point where just as he starts to make his mark in the theatre scene everything goes very badly wrong for him. ‘The Isle of Dogs’ at the Swan Theatre The closure…
Nov. 18, 2024
Shake-Scene Shakespeare: A Conversation With Lizzie Conrad-Hughes
Episode 144: On several occasions through the story of the renaissance theatre I have touched on how the players made use of cue sheets rather than full scripts as they rehearsed and performed plays, so I was fascinated to s…
Nov. 11, 2024
The Life of Ben Jonson Part Two: He That is Taught Only by Himself Has a Fool for a Master
Episode 143: The second part of the life of Ben Jonson takes him from his birth, through his years at school and onto working as a bricklayer. He then briefly joined the army before returning to become a player, a poet and …
Nov. 4, 2024
The Culture of The Shrew in Early Modern Europe: A Conversation with Dr Natalia Pikli
Episode 142 Dr Natália Pikli discusses the changing view of the 'The Shrew' in Medieval and Early Modern European culture and how women are represented in Shakespeare's early comedies, She then goes on to outline how Shakesp…
Oct. 28, 2024
The Life of Ben Jonson Part One: It’s Complicated
Episode 141: In this episode I set us up for a look at the life of Ben Johnson discussing some of the sources for information about his life and how far we can trust them – it’s complicated. Jonson’s 1618 visit to Scotland a…
Oct. 21, 2024
The Kings Lynn Medieval Stage: A Conversation With Tim Fitzhigham
In October 2023 the story of the discovery of a stage floor that dated from before the Elizabethan period in St George’s Guildhall in Kings Lynn hit the news. The attrition to the headline writers was the fact that that ver…
Oct. 14, 2024
The Comedy of Errors: ‘Hand in Hand, Not One Before the Other.’
Episode 139: Last time ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ gave us a look at second comedy from Shakespeare’s early phase as a playwright. As you heard certain elements in the plotting of the play and execution of its denouement make…
Oct. 7, 2024
A Knack to Know a Knave: ‘Laugh at the Faults and Weigh it as it is.’
Episode 138: Over the course of speaking about English Renaissance Plays and Shakespeare I have had cause to mention the play ‘A Knack to Know a Knave’ several times. Most latterly because it is thought to include reference…
Sept. 30, 2024
Two Gentlemen of Verona: ‘O Heaven, Were Men but Constant.’
Episode 137: The dating of the play Printing in the First Folio The sources for the play and the nature of the text A brief synopsis of the play The major themes of the play How the status and youth of Valentine and Proteus …
Sept. 23, 2024
Words, Language and Actions in ‘Titus Andronicus’: A Conversation with Eleanor Conlon.
Episode 136: Having given you my own thoughts on ‘Titus Andronicus’ last time I’m pleased to say that for this special guest episode I was able to take the discussion even further with Eleanor Conlon, a fellow podcaster and …
Sept. 16, 2024
Titus Andronicus: 'Vengeance Is In My Heart, Death In My Hand'
Episode 135: Is Shakespeare’s early tragedy more than just a gore-fest? The first performance of the play, maybe The three playing troupes involved with the play Is the play a collaboration with George Peele? The popularity …
Sept. 9, 2024
Shakespeare, the Bible and Dorothy L Sayers: A Conversation with Jem Bloomfield
Episode 134: Author Jem Bloomfield joins us to talk about his recently published book, ‘Allusion in Detective Fiction’, which looks at how and why allusion to Shakespeare and the Bible was used by the masters, or I should sa…
Sept. 2, 2024
The Taming of the Shrew: ‘No Profit Grows Where No Pleasure Is taken’
Episode 133: The complications with dating the play and it’s relationship with a similar Elizabethan play The sources for the play A short summary of the play The Christopher Sly framing device Switching of roles in the play…
Aug. 26, 2024
Richard 3rd at Shakespeare's Globe
Episode 132 My thoughts on seeing a recent production of Richard 3rd at Shakespeare's Globe, starring Michelle Terry in the titular role. The production and the controversy that surrounded it raises questions about gender fl…