Beyond Shakespeare

Exploring: The N-Town Play, a slow burn look at a medieval Mystery (sort of) cycle. The N-Town Play comes to us as a single manuscript, but it's a compilation of various different sources - including elements from what looks like a cycle and various other large scale productions focusing on episodes from the Bible.
The journey continues with the Moses play. We haven't done that much on Moses elsewhere in the canon, he's clearly a tricky one to dramatise. He does pop up in Chester - albeit in passing...
https://audioboom.com/posts/2771878-chester-plays-5-1-balaam-and-balak
And the character is in God's Promises by John Bale - here is his scene in isolation - https://audioboom.com/posts/7062086-god-s-promises-by-john-bale-act-4
And he pops up in Three Laws - which we looked at in exploring sessions on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLflmEwgdfKoLwd-aRmg45psh4ORNUpDJf
The Beyond Shakespeare Irregulars this episode were Richard Fawcett and Alan Scott – with host, Robert Crighton.
There are various online and purchasable versions available - here's a good one, but is in the original middle English and might put you off - others should be hunted for to taste.
A play text: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/sugano-n-town-plays-play-6-moses

The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at [email protected], follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org

Spoilers: The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary (Act 5)
Welcome to this spoiler episode for The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry by Elizabeth Cary - and it's very spoilery! The canvas has narrowed again for Act 5, as it's almost a solo turn by Herod. If it weren't for the arrival of Nuntio there would be no one else. With a plain text recording of the Act and chorus overview at the end.
In the plain text: Geir Madland as Herod and Richard Fawcett as Nuntio.
Hosted by Robert Crighton - plus Beyond Shakespeare Irregular Alan Scott looking at the Chorus.
BE WARNED - If you just want to listen to the play as a play, don't listen to the spoilers episodes. Come back later, or don't listen. However, if you find early drama hard to follow, then you will get a good grounding in the action here - especially as we may make changes or cuts for our final version! The plain text version is rough in hew, it will change and we produce it in part to hunt out errors. You can buy soooooo many editions of this play you can buy - just google them, seriously - there are also etexts and on YouTube various other looks at the play. There will be more details coming soon for all the various links on the website, but till then...
For text, there's loads online - for example the Norton https://wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/27636_17th_U03_Cary-1-51.pdf
And for your facsimile type thing something like this is out there https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176700/page/n21/mode/2up

If you can't wait for our production there's the video of the Royal Holloway 1995 production, directed by Elizabeth Schafer
https://youtu.be/TOYsjNcG93w
Other online versions can and should be searched for. Support the podcast by going to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare and pledge something – or by leaving a review on itunes or whichever podcasting service you use. Or follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or check out our website at www.beyondshakespeare.org - you can even email us if you feel so inclined - [email protected]

Discussing: The Ghost of Richard III by Christopher Brooke with Dr Jitka Štollová.
In 1614, Christopher Brooke produced his Ghost poem on the life of Richard III. To celebrate (wantonly plug) our live streamed stage adaptation, Robert Crighton discusses the poem and a whole world of other texts on Richard III.
Dr Jitka Štollová is a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College.
At time of release - the live stream will be occurring on Tuesday 21st July at 19.00 BST - links for the stream will be on the Quay Theatre online website - https://online.quaysudbury.com/
Read the poem - https://archive.org/details/ghostrichardthi00collgoog/page/n19/mode/2up
And to watch our exploration of The True Tragedy of Richard III, it's on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLflmEwgdfKoLqof8eUWJU5EEJXr93e56y
The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at [email protected], follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org

Exploring: The N-Town Play, a slow burn look at a medieval Mystery (sort of) cycle. The N-Town Play comes to us as a single manuscript, but it's a compilation of various different sources - including elements from what looks like a cycle and various other large scale productions focusing on episodes from the Bible.
The journey continues with the happy story of listening to the voices in your head, it's Abraham and Isaac. We looked at this play twice in this session.
For an alternative look at this story, we have rather a lot...
There's Chester, which is covered in three episodes, though only 2 and 3 cover the central story - https://audioboom.com/posts/2776335-chester-plays-4-2-abraham
There's the (very similar to Chester) Brome play which we've done an exploring session on - soon to come as a full cast audio adaptation - https://audioboom.com/posts/7148855-exploring-the-brome-abraham-and-isaac
The Beyond Shakespeare Irregulars this episode were Richard Fawcett and Alan Scott – with host, Robert Crighton.
There are various online and purchasable versions available - here's a good one, but is in the original middle English and might put you off - others should be hunted for to taste.
A play text: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/sugano-n-town-plays-play-5-abraham-and-isaac

The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at [email protected], follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org

A special follow up discussion episode on John Heywood, to celebrate the release of John Heywood - Comedy and Survival in Tudor England by Greg Walker, Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. The book is a full biography of Heywood's life, from cradle to grave, and covers his complete surviving literary output. The book is published by Oxford University Press and can be found here - https://global.oup.com/academic/product/john-heywood-9780198851516?q=greg%20walker&lang=en&cc=gb
Or in such a thing as a bookshop, should such a thing exist.
A complete selection of audio adaptations of Heywood's plays also exist on this podcast. 
Special Thanks to Professor Greg Walker for giving us his time to speak with us.Useful Links -
John Heywood playlist: https://audioboom.com/playlists/4620013-the-plays-of-john-heywood
Staging the Henrician Court: http://stagingthehenriciancourt.brookes.ac.uk/ 
Our website: http://beyondshakespeare.org
Please support this podcast, and gain access to additional materials by going to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare or follow us @BeyondShakes on Twitter.

Welcome to this spoiler episode for The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry by Elizabeth Cary - and it's very spoilery! It's all change again in Act 4, as Herod returns!  We say goodbye to Salome, Mariam, Doris... pretty much everyone except Herod.  With a plain text recording of the Act and chorus overview at the end.
In the plain text: Introducing Geir Madland as Herod, with Pamela Flanagan as Salome, Gillian Horgan as Mariam, Pollie Hall as Doris, Heydn McCabe as Constabarus, Hugh Weller-Poley as Babas First Son, Mark Scanlon as Babas Second Son, Richard Fawcett as Nuntio, and Simon Nader for this rough cut, stepping in as Butler.
Hosted by Robert Crighton - who's also playing Phaeroras - plus Beyond Shakespeare Irregular Alan Scott looking at the Chorus.
BE WARNED - If you just want to listen to the play as a play, don't listen to the spoilers episodes. Come back later, or don't listen. However, if you find early drama hard to follow, then you will get a good grounding in the action here - especially as we may make changes or cuts for our final version! The plain text version is rough in hew, it will change and we produce it in part to hunt out errors. You can buy soooooo many editions of this play you can buy - just google them, seriously - there are also etexts and on YouTube various other looks at the play. There will be more details coming soon for all the various links on the website, but till then...
For text, there's loads online - for example the Norton https://wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/27636_17th_U03_Cary-1-51.pdf
And for your facsimile type thing something like this is out there https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176700/page/n21/mode/2up

If you can't wait for our production there's the video of the Royal Holloway 1995 production, directed by Elizabeth Schafer
https://youtu.be/TOYsjNcG93w
Other online versions can and should be searched for. Support the podcast by going to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare and pledge something – or by leaving a review on itunes or whichever podcasting service you use. Or follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or check out our website at www.beyondshakespeare.org - you can even email us if you feel so inclined - [email protected]

From the Winchester Dialogues this is a read through and discussion of Occupation and Idleness, edited from our zoom sessions on YouTube. Written sometime in the midst of the 15th century, this prefigures much of the interlude drama of the 16th century and deserves more attention.
The explorers were Sascha Cooper, Liza Graham, Ruth Evans, Gregory Musson, and Iain Black. The host is Robert Crighton
The only copy we can find online can be viewed here -
https://medievalit.com/home/edrama/morality-plays/occupation-and-idleness/
Otherwise you'll need to hunt out a rare as hens teeth edition of The Winchester Dialogues. Good luck with that.
The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare Or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at [email protected], follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org

What's Past is Prologue: Eastward Ho! by Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston.
Eastward Ho! is a fantastic play, and one we'd like to do one day. Here's just the prologue to tantalise and moderately annoy you.
The prologue is performed by the fabulous Sarah Golding, voice actor and audio producer extraordinary - you can hear Sarah Golding all over the podcasting world as a voice actor, and as the creator of MADIVA Podcast (or MODERN AUDIO DRAMA INDIE VOICE ACTING PODCAST) @QuirkyVoices

DO YOU WANT TO HEAR MORE? If you'd like to make us to do a full audio production of this play, join us on patreon and choose this play at the next vote. www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare or you can follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes - or go to our website beyondshakespeare.org
The episode is hosted and produced by Robert Crighton.
Additional sound effects from the wonderful people at http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Exploring: The N-Town Play, a slow burn look at a medieval Mystery (sort of) cycle. The N-Town Play comes to us as a single manuscript, but it's a compilation of various different sources - including elements from what looks like a cycle and various other large scale productions focusing on episodes from the Bible.
The journey continues with Noah and every child's favourite genocide story. For some light relief, there's the return of Cain!
For an alternative look at the Noah story, we have also looked at the Chester version - it's split over three episodes and can be found here... https://audioboom.com/posts/2472375-chester-plays-3-1-noah
The Beyond Shakespeare Irregulars this episode were Liz Cole, Richard Fawcett, Mark Scanlon, and Alan Scott – with host, Robert Crighton.
There are various online and purchasable versions available - here's a good one, but is in the original middle English and might put you off - others should be hunted for to taste.
A play text: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/sugano-n-town-plays-play-4-noah

The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at [email protected], follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org

Welcome to this spoiler episode for The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry by Elizabeth Cary - and it's very spoilery! The plot pivots in Act 3, with some news of Herod. He's ALIVE! Cue a host of reactions, happy and sad. With a plain text recording of the Act and chorus overview at the end.
In the plain text: with Pamela Flanagan as Salome, Gillian Horgan as Mariam, Rob Myson as Sohemus, Andy Barrett as Ananell, Alan Scott as Silleus Man. Hosted by Robert Crighton - who's also playing Phaeroras - plus Beyond Shakespeare Irregular Alan Scott looking at the Chorus.
BE WARNED - If you just want to listen to the play as a play, don't listen to the spoilers episodes. Come back later, or don't listen. However, if you find early drama hard to follow, then you will get a good grounding in the action here - especially as we may make changes or cuts for our final version! The plain text version is rough in hew, it will change and we produce it in part to hunt out errors. You can buy soooooo many editions of this play you can buy - just google them, seriously - there are also etexts and on YouTube various other looks at the play. There will be more details coming soon for all the various links on the website, but till then...
For text, there's loads online - for example the Norton https://wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/27636_17th_U03_Cary-1-51.pdf
And for your facsimile type thing something like this is out there https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176700/page/n21/mode/2up

If you can't wait for our production there's the video of the Royal Holloway 1995 production, directed by Elizabeth Schafer
https://youtu.be/TOYsjNcG93w
Other online versions can and should be searched for. Support the podcast by going to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare and pledge something – or by leaving a review on itunes or whichever podcasting service you use. Or follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or check out our website at www.beyondshakespeare.org - you can even email us if you feel so inclined - [email protected]