Bardwatching: Autumn Term 2 2022-23
Freya Parr
Saturday, October 1, 2022
When it comes to the Bard, she's an inveterate twitcher. Freya Parr shares what she's spotted through her beady bardy binoculars.
MARC BRENNER
We first survey the plot, then draw the model
A new dedicated Shakespeare research centre has arrived in London, cementing a 20-year collaboration between Shakespeare's Globe and King's College London. The first venture for the new London Shakespeare Centre will be the fourth annual Shakespeare and Race Festival. First held in 2018, the festival aims to highlight the role of race in Shakespeare's writing and to give a platform to scholars, actors, playwrights, theatre makers and educators of colour. Since its inception, the festival has been curated by Professor Farah Karim-Cooper, professor of English at King's and the newly appointed co-director of education at Shakespeare's Globe.
This year's festival focuses on the theme of ‘Spoken Word(s)’, exploring the intersection between poetry and performance. Taking place between 31 October and 5 November, the festival will see poet Terrance Hayes, Folger Theatre's artistic director Karen Ann Daniels, Birmingham Rep's associate director Iqbal Khan and actor Akiya Henry take to the stage. The two institutions have previously established the joint MA in Shakespeare Studies and the Early Modern Scholars of Colour network.
kcl.ac.uk/research/london-shakespeare-centre
As merry as the day is long
Ramps on the Moon is a collaborative effort between six UK theatre venues, focusing on placing deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists and audiences at the centre of its work. The company's new production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is set to tour around the UK between 9 September and 12 November this year, directed by Robert Hastie.
You can catch Ramps on the Moon at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, Birmingham Rep, Nottingham Playhouse, the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, London's Theatre Royal Stratford East and Salisbury Playhouse.
Why should their liberty than ours be more?
If you missed Shakespeare Beyond Borders Alliance's online Equality Shakespeare Festival earlier this year, you're in luck. The recordings of all the talks from the festival are now available to watch back via the University of Birmingham's YouTube channel. Tune in to hear from leading theatre practitioners, academics and actors discuss the ways in which the works of Shakespeare can be used to aid and support equality, diversity, inclusivity, social justice and cross-cultural collaboration. There are panel talks on Japanese Shakespeare performance, environmentalism and ecology within Shakespeare's work and more.
Everyone can master a grief but he that has it
Shakespeare's Globe has added a content guidance warning to its new production of Henry VIII in the wake of the death of Queen Elizabeth III. As well as alerting audiences to the overt sexual content and on-stage depictions of an execution and childbirth in the production, the Globe also included a reference to ‘scenes that audiences may find sensitive due to recent events, including a coronation, the death of a monarch and the national anthem.’
I think the king is but a man
Britain's new monarch King Charles III set the tone for his reign in his opening speech to MPs and peers, referencing lines from both Henry VIII and Hamlet. ‘As Shakespeare says of the earlier Queen Elizabeth, she was “a pattern to all princes living”,’ he said in his address in Westminster Hall, following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. In his first public broadcast as King, he also doffed his cap to the Bard with a quote from Hamlet. ‘Thank you for your love and devotion to our family and to the family of nations you have served so diligently all these years,’ he said in direct address to his late mother. ‘May “flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”.’
As Prince of Wales, the King was the president of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a position he is known to have enjoyed thanks to his enduring love of the Bard's work, even playing the lead in a production of Macbeth at the age of 17. It's not yet known what will happen to the new King's patronages, but it is likely that they will be redistributed among the royal family, possibly being passed over to his son William, the newly appointed Prince of Wales.
