Determined to prove a villain: Richard III

This is it: Shakespeare’s first great play. (It’s also the first one in the series…

Love and revenge in a time of globalisation: The Merchant of Venice

If you go down to the woods today: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Of Wit and Wordplay: Love’s Labour’s Lost

Important issues first: I had a discussion with my wife about the apostrophes in the title in this play, as it seems ambiguous at best how many there should be and in which words they should be located. This has apparently been a longstanding issue, as it…

Heir-raising exploits: Henry IV, Part One

Okay, let’s get the bold claim out there: this is Shakespeare’s most perfectly…

Vengeance unlimited: Titus Andronicus

Here, then, is Shakespeare’s first tragedy, and a most lamentable one it is. There is some speculation that this could be the first play that Shakespeare ever wrote, although the more usual consensus is that it comes after the Henry VI trilogy, which is where I’ve…

Life is just one damned thing after another: The Life and Death of King John

This is one of the Shakespeare plays that I was completely unfamiliar with before beginning this project, never having read it, let alone taught it. Probably written around 1595–6 (although there’s…