New on the @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social blog: An interview with The Arden Shakespeare Fourth series editors on what means to produce new editions of Shakespeare’s works today ⤵️
@ardenpublisher.bsky.social
www.bloomsbury.com/discover/blo...
Trying to encourage more schools to teach comedies - communal, interested in gender and sexuality, full of models of resilience or evitability, in Snyder’s lovely word. Do come and see if it might work with your students!
Thank you! X
'hamnet-era'
Finally. Something useful from your archival work, Lucy…
Feeds off author insecurity/vanity - the sense that most books fall into the abyss makes authors vulnerable to this sort of grooming!
Apr 18, 1593: Venus and Adonis is entered into the Stationer's Register in London. #OTD #Shakespeare
bit.ly/38AemAm
We don’t seem to be talking about these as much as we should! Check out, eg, this mad website for my most recent opportunity.
www.inklightbookclub.org
@kvmfinn.bsky.social looking forward to this!
Join us on 4 May at 6pm for our next OWC #Shakespeare webinar on Henry VI Part II.
Prof Emma Smith @oldfortunatus.bsky.social will be joined by Dr Kavita Mudan Finn to discuss the play followed by a Q&A.
All welcome! Free but booking required.
shakespeare-webinar-henryvi-partii.eventbrite.co.uk
April is Shakespeare's birthday month and we're celebrating with a ton of free activities on Saturday, April 18! 🥳 Join us for stage combat, dancing, trivia, salons with Folger Fellows and, of course, cupcakes! 🧁 Details at folger.edu/birthday
Here are the dates for my UK publicity tour for
"The Traveller. The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity". Can't wait to tell you all about this man who tried to find what connects us rather than what sets us apart. And he was Humboldt's mentor.
Please come!
A photograph of a character in a play. Against a black background, a young woman with short hair. She's wearing a white slip-style petticoat, with thin straps; it's grubby down the front. She looks confused.
Hermia: Lysander would NEVER leave me, you have clearly KILLED him! #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Hermia (Matti Houghton) in the 2011 @the-rsc.bsky.social Dream, dir. Nancy Meckler, dir. Katrina Lindsay
I’m lucky enough to be at the @folger.edu next week and have a bit of capacity to take some pics - so let me know if you need anything.
A photograph of a play in performance. The back of the stage is an architectural archway, with pediments etc, the alcove curtained, all covered, including the floor, in shiny white. A woman wearing a black tutu is lying asleep on top of an upright piano. In the foreground, a young man wearing a white tutu, white tights and ballet shoes, with a black tailcoat, is standing in front of her, holding a purple flower in his hand.
Puck: I enchanted the ordinary working man (with thespian aspirations)! #MoonMad
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Puck (Sergo Vares, particularly sinister) with Titania (Hedydd Dylan) asleep in her 'bower' (on top of the piano) in Headlong's wintry production in the Wanamaker, winter 2025-6.
Delighted to announce that Volume 15 of the Journal of Early Modern Studies is now available online! oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bs...
I could do this in Oxford on Monday next week: let me know if that’s in time.
Last chance to register for this evening's live #Shakespeare webinar with Emma Smith and Amy Lidster.
They will be discussing Henry VI, Part I, followed by a Q&A.
6 April 2026
6 - 7.15pm
Online via Zoom
All welcome! Free but registration required.
#HenryVI #ShakespeareSky
Excited to receive my author copies of Henry VI Part 1 out later this month!
Hear @oldfortunatus.bsky.social and me discussing the play and my introduction today at 6pm BST @engfac.bsky.social
english.web.ox.ac.uk/event/englis...
I had this too! And some others, very similar. So is the scam that there are no readers, but we are so flattered we pony up $$?
A photograph of a play in performance. In the front is a large man wearing dark trousers and a white undershirt, a flying helmet with goggles and large donkey ears. He's standing in front of a group of people some of whom have coloured hair or funny hats, his arms outstretched; a blonde woman wearing a long pink dress is behind him.
The same group of people, but the man is now standing in an enormous upturned umbrella, lined with pink. He's holding on to the handle and the blonde woman is kneeling beside him with her arms outstretched, her back to the camera. Everyone is smiling.
Titania: FAIRIES! Fairies: READY! #MoonMad
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Dream @the-rsc.bsky.social 1994, dir. Adrian Noble. Titania (Stella Gonet) and her fairies in her umbrella-bower, Bottom the great Desmond Barrit, later a glorious Falstaff (inter alia); he died last month❤️
I have seen firsthand the scale of displacement and the intensity of airstrikes in Lebanon.
Civilians are paying high price.
We need de-escalation and support in responding.
My interview on Al Jazeera👇
mediaview.aljazeera.com/video/OR5uhE...
Meanwhile, on the moon...
So delighted to see this, Kavita - it’s a brilliant intro.
Paperback copy of the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 sitting on a bookcase. Cover has a red heraldic rose, an unhappy-looking king, and possible witch, and a soldier on horseback, all surrounded by a wash of bloody red.
Back cover of a paperback edition od the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Henry VI, Part 2.
It never fully sinks in until you're holding the copy in your hands...
Thank you to @oldfortunatus.bsky.social for trusting me with the introduction! I’m quite proud of how it turned out. 😄🍾📖 #Shakespeare #EarlyModern
Really looking forward to this
A photoshopped image from the Bayeux Tapestry, showing Harold Godwinson swearing on holy relics an oath to the Absolute Unit (a very large sheep).
Breaking news: we've just signed a once-in-a-lifetime loan agreement to bring rural England's most iconic artwork home for the first time in 1,000 years.
Introducing our 2027 major exhibition - Bayewe Tapestry: the Fight to Wool England.
A photograph of a character in a play. A young man wearing a yellow boiler suit, stands in the middle of the stage looking a bit confused. He's got enormous donkey ears on his head. The heads of the audience are visible around him.
The same image as before, but more close up.
Bottom: are they making an ASS of me?🫏🤔 #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Brilliant, adorable Hammed Animashaun as Bottom in the 2019 @bridgetheatre.bsky.social Dream, dir. Nick Hytner. This production swapped Oberon & Titania, so that it was Oberon who fell for Bottom❤️
