Shakespeare and Pals: Recapping the Bard

Danish guy wants to... This doesn't need an introduction!

After many long years, we're here. Shakespeare's masterpiece, the masterpiece of English literature. As Gustave Flaubert said, the three finest things God ever made were Hamlet, Don Giovanni, and the sea.

Does Hamlet deserve the hype? Join us to find out!

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Sources: 

The Oxford Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (Oxford University Press)

Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Revenge is a dish best served... with lots of collateral damage...

Andrea's dead, but true haters take revenge from beyond the grave. He enlists the spirit of Revenge to kill his murderer, the Portuguese Prince Balthazar. This leads to Andrea's girlfriend falling in love with another man, that man getting murdered, that man's father murdering the murderers, and... so much other stuff...

The origin of the revenge tragedy. Without The Spanish Tragedy, there would be no Hamlet. Does the genre grand-daddy live up to Shakespeare's masterpiece? Join us to find out!

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We return to Shakespeare's true love: cross-dressers.

When Viola gets washed up on the Illyrian coast, she simply has no choice but to dress up as a boy and enter the service of the sexy local lord... Hi-jinks ensue. This good, cross-dressing girl gets caught up in love triangles and mistaken identity.

We once more ask: Is Shakespeare good at comedy? Join us to find out!

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Sources: 

The Oxford Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (Oxford University Press)

Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Phedre's been bit by the love-bug, and it's gonna get a lot of people killed.

Athenian Prince Hippolyte thinks the worst thing is for his step-mum Phedre to hate him... Oh, no, no... His step-mum L-O-V-E-S him. She knows it's wrong, but her husband is probably dead, and her maid is an enabler. What could possibly go wrong?

We've done the greatest French comedy, Moliere's Tartuffe. Now we're doing the greatest French tragedy -- Jean Racine's Phedre! Does it deserve the hype? Join us to find out!

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Boy loves girl. Boy gets banished, then girl gets banished, so boy and girl run to the forest where girl's father is also banished. And girl pretends to be boy to flirt with boy. That old chestnut...

Shakespeare loves his cross-dressing heroines, and here we have one of his most famous -- Rosalind. We also get the first of Shakespeare's wise fools.  

But is "As You Like It" as we like it? Join Michael and Sophie to find out!

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Sources: 

The Oxford Shakespeare: As You Like It (Oxford University Press)

Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

This time the Shakespeare-thing is... Us!

Three years on, we've decided to take a look back at the podcast. How our opinions of Shakespeare have changed, our hot takes, our cold takes, and what is the weirdest Shakespeare thing we've done is?

Join us for our three-year retrospective!

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The big question: Are the French funny?

It wasn't just England that had Renaissance theatre. France had a crack at it, too, and their big-dog of classical comedy was Molière.

Orgon's wife and children hate Tartuffe, a mooching, puritanical, hypocritical conman. Unfortunately, Orgon thinks Tartuffe is a saint. Can Orgon family, with the help of a feisty maid, catch Tartuffe red-handed?

Has Molière's comedy survived the centuries? Join Michael and Sophie to find out!

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Sources:

Molière, Le Tartuffe (Folio classique)

Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite (trans. Curtis Hidden Page), Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2027

The one where Brutus gets radicalised by anonymous commenters

Conspiracy, assassination, sky-rending omens. Julius Caesar is dictator-for-life, and some people think this might be bad for democracy. But is it right to kill him?

And then the second half of the play is about a war that no one remembers.

Does Julius Caesar deserve its place among Shakespeare's A-list? Join Michael and Sophie to find out!

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Sources: 

The Oxford Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (Oxford University Press)

We're traveling back in time to the inspiration for Shakespeare's Roman plays - Plutarch!

Plutarch wrote compact, anecdote-filled, politically-astute biographies of the great Greeks and Romans, and who greater than Julius Caesar? Would Plutarch's tale of the rise and fall of Julius Caesar be worth reading even if Shakespeare never based his Julius Caesar on it? Join us to find out!

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Sources: 

Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press)

Plutarch (trans. Bernadotte Perrin), Caesar (Perseus Digital Library)

We're having a second chance at a first impression. Shakespeare's first play -- AGAIN!

Just like Shakespeare got better, so have we. Sophie and Michael go back to Shakespeare's very first play. Does Shakespeare's debut -- packed with love triangles, cross-dressing, and love-able rogues, and hate-able heroes -- benefit from a new light? Tune in to our new episode 1 and episode 36.

Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

Sources: 

The Oxford Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Oxford University Press)

Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)