Sir John Falstaff is a river who has burst his banks. He has taken on a life beyond Shakespeare’s plays and become a myth in his own right. Anybody who has a thirst for life is described as Falstaffian, he has had operas written for him, actors at the mature height of their comic powers […]

Short SoS – Why is Falstaff so popular?

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In an episode dedicated to a great Shakespearean, Mr John Branston, Sheldrake drifts slightly from the one-play-one-idea tagline to focus on one character in this play: Queen Margaret. After her long march through the Henry VI plays, how does she wrest some control of the audience’s perspective from Richard and, in the end, does it […]

Richard III – Queen Margaret

Few people in the world will have spent as many hours working on the delivery and performance of Shakespeare as Robert Price. After a career as an actor, he was the Senior Voice Tutor at RADA 2007-15 and a voice tutor at LAMDA for many years. He therefore has huge experience with and a rare […]

Special: Interview with RADA ex-Head of Voice Robert Price

In the first of two episodes on this mightiest of plays, Sheldrake compares the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with its sources, uncovering a tremendous amount of ‘literary upcycling’ but also a profound and imaginative tribute to the power of theatre at the play’s core. First preview of Sheldrake on Shakespeare: Live! THIS FRIDAY 2nd June, […]

Hamlet – Is anything original?

In his return to the airwaves, Sheldrake considers the extraordinary popularity of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and concludes that it is the dark matter in the middle of this festive comedy sandwich that makes the play such a satisfying experience overall. iTunes Amazon Sheldrake on Shakespeare Live! London previews: Etcetera Theatre 2nd June Rosemary Branch […]

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Why so popular?

Henry V: one of the most patriotic characters and plays in all of literature, surely? Not so, says Sheldrake. Henry V and his world are thoroughly morally ambiguous. Also available on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/ndhzfxm

Short SoS – Why is Falstaff so popular?

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