Bardwatching: Spring Term 2 2022-23

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages

The Royal Shakespeare Company has opened a ‘warm hub’ at The Other Place, its creative learning hub centre in Stratford-upon-Avon. It joins several other warm hubs around the town, which have been opened in response to the cost-of-living crisis as a way of offering safe, warm spaces to help people reduce the cost of heating their homes.

Offering free WiFi, hot drinks and snacks, the warm hub will be open every Tuesday from 2-5pm between 10 January and 28 March. There will also be arts and crafts workshops for adults, as well as after-school activities and a creative play space for the children. It will also be an opportunity for members of the public to suggest ideas about how the RSC can work with the local opportunity in new ways.

To unpathed waters, undreamed shores

Having dazzled West End audiences for the past few years, the hit musical & Juliet has headed stateside as the British cast hand over to their Broadway counterparts. The coming-of-age musical tells the ‘what if’ story of what might happened if Juliet had not died at the end of Shakespeare’s tragic Romeo and Juliet.

The musical’s world premiere at the Manchester Opera House in 2019 paved the way to a West End run shortly after. Nine Olivier and 13 WhatsOnStage Awards nominations later, the production was forced to shut down in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 lockdowns, despite having only been open for a few months. It reopened again the following year and has enjoyed a successful run at the Shaftesbury Theatre, which is due to come to an end on 25 March.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown

It turns out Prince Harry’s not a big fan of the Bard. Not only does he cast shade on the playwright in his highly publicised tell-all memoir Spare – praising Steinbeck, he writes, ‘unlike Shakespeare, [he] did not need a translator – he also gave Shakespeare a shout-out in his ITV interview with Tom Bradby. ‘This is a sort of Shakespearean tale,’ says Bradby, referring to the Prince’s warring relationship with the rest of the Royal Family. ‘You’ve probably read more Shakespeare than I have,’ rebuts the Prince. ‘Not as much as my dad, but you’re up there.’ It might not have been the juiciest part of that interview, granted, but it was a standout moment for the Bardwatchers among us.

My heart suspects more than mine eye can see

Titus Andronicus is one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest tales, seeing off more characters than any of the Bard’s other plays. In a new production running at the Globe this winter, director Jude Christian has come up with a less gratuitous way to show violence. Candles are snuffed out at particularly macabre points in the script, rather than showing relentless bloodshed. The Globe’s 2014 revival of Titus received reports of audience members fainting when they were presented with visceral, gruesome depictions of Lavinia after her tongue and hands are severed.

© CLIVE SHERLOCK

Shakespeare’s Globe

Despite Christian’s efforts to have ‘a different approach to violence’, this new all-female production comes with a content guidance warning, showing that it is still a long way from a sanitised interpretation. ‘This play contains incidents and themes of anti-black racism, sexual assault and its aftermath, extreme violence and death, including bodily mutilations, cannibalism, rape and self-harm,’ it reads. ‘This content may be extremely upsetting for many.’

Some are born great, some achieve greatness

Having previously served as chair of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for 11 years, Peter Kyle was awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours List for services to cultural heritage. He had stepped down from the role of chair in September 2022, having launched the Shakespeare Week learning programme for primary school students, led the restoration of New Place – Shakespeare’s family home for 19 years – and supported the trust through the pandemic and recovery. Prior to his tenure with the Birthplace Ttrust, Kyle was CEO of Shakespeare’s Globe, before he retired in 2010.

Why, there they are both, baked in that pie

The RSC and its network of 12 regional theatre partners have launched its new 37 Plays campaign, searching for the best new writing talent. Applications will be open until the end of January for playwrights to submit their scripts. 37 selected plays will be announced in April and performed across the UK and online in autumn. It’s the first time the RSC has invited submissions of unsolicited scripts by playwrights of any age.