Fun facts about the life and work of the theatre critic Kenneth Tynan 1. He dodged his National Service – possibly by being too flamboyant. When Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980) was called up for National Service, he turned up with painted fingernails and wearing an over-the-top floppy hat, and ‘camped up’ his […]
The life of actor David Garrick (1717-1779), told through five pieces of interesting trivia 1. He helped to bring a new degree of realism to acting. In his An Essay on Acting (1744), Garrick offered a new take on the art of stage-acting. Of Macbeth’s movement after the murder of Duncan, […]
At the moment, Maxine Peake is playing Hamlet at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. The promotional blurb for the production on the Royal Exchange website states that Peake ‘creates a Hamlet for now, a Hamlet for Manchester’. But a woman playing Shakespeare’s Hamlet is, actually, nothing new. Numerous women have […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) One of the most celebrated tragedies of ancient Greece was Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ play about the Theban king who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. In order to become King of Thebes, Oedipus had had to solve a famous riddle – or should […]
Everyone knows Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Richard III (or knows of them at least). Even Richard II, As You Like It, and Antony and Cleopatra can be said to be well-known William Shakespeare plays. But what about the others? He wrote or collaborated on nearly forty, after all. Here are ten of the […]