I'm afraid this blog post will seem especially pedantic and churlish, because it is about the unexpected embedding of a strange word in conversations about early modern theatre history: the word 'permanent'. Theatre history tends to distinguish between playhouses it considers permanent, and those it considers impermanent, despite the fact that no Elizabethan, Jacobean or … Continue reading Performing words #7: permanent

We've been talking about authorship and the way we study it so much on this blog that I've taken a moment to think aloud about where we've got to as a discipline. This post is unusually scholar-facing for me, both in the sense that it's about scholarship and it’s aimed at my colleagues, and it … Continue reading Authorship studies: where have we got to, and where are we going?

I had the enormous privilege of seeing Julius Caesar last night at London's newest theatre. It's one of the greatest Shakespeare productions I've ever seen: visceral, violently physical, exuberantly political but also jewelled with exquisite details. A few newspaper reviews have said that because the show is loud and frenetic it is therefore not terribly subtle. They … Continue reading ‘I do fear the people’: theatre and the problem with audiences

One of the best-known disputes in popular conversation around Shakespeare is the question of who wrote his work. After all, someone must have written it, so it stands to reason that we need to find out who that someone was, and buy them congratulatory cake. One of the foremost candidates for the authorship of Shakespeare's … Continue reading Did Oxford write Shakespeare?

I was lucky enough to work with Kimberley Sykes' Dido, Queen of Carthage company this week. They'll be performing at the RSC September to October 2017 in what looks set to be something very special. Working with actors is deeply embedded in my own practice as someone working on the early London playhouses; I'm always … Continue reading Putting the might into Marlowe’s (and Nashe’s) mighty line