NOTE: This article contains detailed descriptions and spoilers of the plot and characters of both Emilia and & Juliet. We closed off the last decade with two productions that were influenced, rather than written, by Shakespeare. In 2018, Emilia hit the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre stage. Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s protagonist became…

A new year is a time both to reflect and to look forward. This past year in theatre hasn’t been what anyone expected with theatres dark and likely to stay dark for the coming months. However, as Ben and I have noted over the last few months, digital performance has…

Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most maligned female characters. Portrayed in extremes — overtly sexual, ruthlessly ambitious, aligned with witchcraft — Lady Macbeth is the poster girl for women who step outside acceptable boundaries, the women who won’t behave. I’ve lost track of how many descriptions of the play…

Shakespeare Ensemble’s What You Will, curated by Ben Crystal, is the latest offering of COVID-created Shakespeare. It’s a now familiar refrain: the global lockdown meant that the Shakespeare Ensemble’s plans (an R&D session in the Welsh mountains followed by two shows in the USA) were cancelled. …

In a response to COVID-19, Lin-Manuel Miranda brought forward plans to release a film version of his 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton. Rather than a cinema release, he opted to stream the recording via Disney+, with an Independence Day weekend release this year. …

Guildford Shakespeare Company (GSC) have been incredibly active over lockdown — their #AtHomeWithGSC initiative has seen them continue to showcase the fantastic work of their Young Company together with monologues and meet the maker sessions with the grown ups. They have also moved into the Zoom Theatre arena, with a…

Since the theatres closed we have seen Shakespeare move online using Zoom as a theatre space. Much is owed to Rob Myles’s The Show Must Go Online, the trailblazer in this new form of theatre. However, David Spicer’s written-in-lockdown comedy for The Northern Comedy Theatre is possibly the first meta-theatrical…

*SPOILER WARNING: This article contains details of the adaptive choices made in Hermia: Heaven Unto Hell.* Hermia: Heaven Unto Hell is the follow up to Helena: Ugly as a Bear by Fresh Life Theatre, a company of young actors who had devised a darker take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream…

I have repeatedly stated that I think the four-way love-drugged lovers’ fight in A Midsummer Night’s Dream will never work on a Zoom format with socially distanced actors. I may have been wrong. …