Such Stuff: The Shakespeare's Globe Podcast

It’s Christmas at the (Snow) Globe!

It’s that time of year again: the frost is settling on the thatched roof, the decorations have gone up… and all the joy of a Danish family Christmas is about to arrive at the Globe. We caught up with Sandi and Jenifer Toksvig to find out more about their very special show, Christmas at the (Snow) Globe, where audiences will have to help our merry gang find the stolen magic of Christmas, and return it to the Globe… 

We also travel back in time with Dr Will Tosh to the frosty winter of 1607/8, when the river Thames froze solid.

As midwinter approaches, we’ve retreated into the warm glow of candlelight. We head backstage in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse with Cleo, our Candle Technician, to find out how we get through hundreds of candles a day.

Finally, we’ve been digging around the archives to find you a festive poem from Jacobean England.

It’s Halloween at the Globe! We searched the Globe high and low for all things superstitious and spooky… We go behind the scenes with the upcoming production of Macbeth, chatting to director Rob Hastie about witches, superstitions and saying the name of the Scottish Play. 

We go Globe ghost hunting with Access Manager David Bellwood, and discover incredible ghost stories and urban legends, old and new, from the Globe and beyond. 

Prosthetics artist Suzi Battersby tells us how to make a severed head, and about the weirdest prosthetic prop she’s ever made for theatre.

As Brexit rumbles on to an uncertain end, we take a look back at the theatrical experiment we’ve been running alongside the country’s political one, to stage Shakespeare’s cycle of history plays, with their all-too familiar political turmoil, ambitious personalities and treacherous behaviour. We revisit interviews with some of our Henriad companies broadcast earlier in the season; in particular, the women of colour who have brought fresh voices to these stories and roles, bringing to life new ideas about our collective past. We’ll be asking: what is this sceptr’ed isle now? Why is it important to interrogate and keep interrogating our own history, as well as Shakespeare’s version of it? How can the plays act as a kaleidoscope through which to view, to understand and to question our own society?

For centuries, Bartholomew Fair was held on the 24 August in the heart of London, and people flocked to the notorious streets of Smithfield for the fair, famous for its lawlessness, depravity and general merriment. Ben Jonson’s play Bartholomew Fair brings a cast of characters from across London together in a snapshot of London life. But the raucous comedy has a dark side, and its exploration of class, social standing and just deserts has as much to say now as it did then. It’s about to land in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, brought up to date for 2019. We went behind the scenes with the company – director Blanche McIntyre and actors Zach Wyatt, Josh Lacey and Richard Katz – to find out more about

Bartholomew Fair and Londoner’s past and present, and to ask how much has really changed since Jonson’s Londoners partied in the streets of Smithfield?

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play we come back to again and again, the irreverent story of lovers, royalty, fairies and actors crossing paths in a forest outside Athens is full of riotous comedy and lilting poetry, bringing midsummer madness to life. But like all Shakespeare plays, underneath the frothing fun is a dark underbelly. So, this week on the podcast, we go behind the scenes with our company and ask: what’s the dark side to Shakespeare’s comedies? Is Shakespeare misogynistic? And as 21st century theatre-goers, what do we make of the misogyny in Shakespeare?    

In an age of political antagonism and, all too often, despair, is being optimistic and hopeful about the future a truly radical act? Shakespeare’s comedies throw their protagonists into confusion, despair and any number of hilarious hare-brained incidents. In true Shakespearean style, as much as there is comedy, darkness is never too far from the surface. But it all comes right in the end. We sat down with the Globe’s Associate Artistic Director to ask what his idea of ‘radical optimism’ means in his production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and as a political act at this moment in our culture and society.  

This week on the podcast we chat disability and performance, asking how we increase representation on our stages, taking a look at the characters and parts we see – and often, don’t see – performed, and asking whether theatre should act as a mirror, to see yourself in, or a window, to see someone else’s view on the world. We’re joined by actor and campaigner Nadia Albina, actor, performer and researcher Jessi Parrott and actor, performer and comedian Dougie Walker.

This week on the podcast we celebrate the particular fascination of Poland with Shakespeare, exploring how Polish artists have appreciated, performed and played with Shakespeare’s work, and none more so than the renowned Polish playwright, artist, director and craftsman Stanisław Wyspiański. It’s sometimes too easy to think of Shakespeare as being particularly English, and to have a set idea about how the plays should be performed. So, this week on the podcast, we’ll be asking what is the particular fascination with Shakespeare in Poland, and how has it become so politicised? How does Shakespeare cross international borders and how does this change the way we read, understand, perform and see Shakespeare? And what do we mean when we talk about the ‘universality’ of Shakespeare? We chat to translators Tony Howard and Barbara Bogoczek about the life and work of Stanisław Wyspiański; director Nastazja Somers and actress Edyta Budnik delve into The Death of Ophelia, a chance to hear from one of Shakespeare’s best-known but least heard characters; and Dr Will Tosh explores how Shakespeare’s work has spread across the world and what that means for Shakespeare today.

Please note: today’s episode includes references to suicide and mental health issues.

To celebrate World Refugee Day, we catch up with some of the extraordinary artists who have joined us here at Shakespeare’s Globe for Refugee Week.  Refugee Week happens in the UK every year around World Refugee Day, and is brought together by Counterpoint Arts.  We chat to our Refugee Week artist in residence Sabrina Richmond and American director, artist and educator Madeline Sayet. We ask: what can art offer when it comes to telling the stories of lived experience of displacement and migration, how can we tell these complex and layered stories and what role can Shakespeare’s work play in that dialogue?

Sam Wanamaker was an American actor and director, and the visionary behind Shakespeare’s Globe. He founded the Globe project in 1970, and worked tirelessly for decades against setbacks, funding struggles and court cases to build the Globe theatre we sit in today.   In the run up to the centenary of Sam’s birth, we chat to our Director of Education Patrick Spottiswoode – who has been part of the Globe team since 1984 – about Sam’s remarkable story.