- 34 minutes 25 secondsThe Alchemist as a Plague Comedy: A Conversation with Kay Daly
Episode 235:
Last time I took a first look at ‘The Alchemist’ where Ben Jonson mixed farcical comedy with satire and more serious commentary on the society of the 1610s. The play is notable, among other things, for having the time of plague as it’s setting. It is, I think, the only play from that time to do this. And that was the jumping off point for my conversation with Kay Daly who makes a welcome return to the podcast after having previously discussed Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s world view. Those episodes are still out there on the podcast archive and, I think, well worth a listen if you haven’t done so already.
Kay Daly is a writer, novelist, book and theatre reviewer, teacher, and public humanities advocate. Since earning her Ph.D. in English Literature from Northwestern University, she has written for a variety of publications and organizations including The Chicago Review of Books, TimeOut Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, WNET New York Public Media, The Library of Virginia’s blog UnCommonwealth, Dramatics Magazine, and Centerstage Chicago. She also teaches adult enrichment courses focusing on arts and humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago. And at the end of this episode you can hear a bit about her debut novel which is also concerned with the world of Ben Jonson and is due out in April 2027.
I spoke to Kay from her home over a zoom call.
Link to Kay's website: https://www.kaydalywriter.com
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5 October 2026, 5:30 am - 36 minutes 17 secondsThe Alchemist: ‘No Country’s Mirth is Better Than Our Own’
Episode 234:
In 1610 Ben Jonson was penning what is often considered to be his most comic of comedies. Johnson was well into his middle age, being thirty-eight years old in 1610 and had several years of producing masques for the court behind him, but with the initial failure of ‘Epicene’ the previous year on the public stage still, no doubt, ringing in his ears. How much that failure influenced Jonson to turn to high comedy in ‘The Alchemist’ is difficult to say but the play is still one packed with satire, classical allusion, and comment on current fads and fashions, so still a very Jonsonian play.
The early performance history of the play
The source material for the play
The early print history of the play
The Acrostic summary of the play
A not very brief but necessary summary of the play
The play as a farce
The vices as drivers for the plot
The prologue
The role of Alchemy in the play
Models for Subtle, the alchemist
The character of the main protagonists through their names:
Face, Subtle, Sir Epicure Mammon, Drugger, Dapper, Kastril, and Dame Pliant
The later performance history of the play
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28 September 2026, 5:30 am - 36 minutes 23 secondsIf This Be Magic – Translating Shakespeare: A Conversation with Daniel Hahn
Episode 233:
Did you know that in 2023 you could have seen the play at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London presented in Juba Arabic using a translation by Joseph Abuk which he had produced for the South Sudan Theatre Company in 2011? Cymbeline like all Shakespeare plays has been translated and performed in many languages and productions and publications using translations account for a large part of global reach. In his book ‘If This Be Magic’ Daniel Hahn explores the world of translating Shakespeare and looks at the challenges and benefits of Shakespeare in translation. By examining some of the very big and very small decisions a translator has to make when faced with a Shakespeare text Daniel takes the reader into a world or words and meanings and ponders the question of how does Shakespeare remain Shakespeare when every word has been changed?
Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator. His recent work alongside ‘If This Be Magic: the unlikely art of Shakespeare in translation’, include translations of fiction from Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. He is currently co-editing (with Padma Viswanathan) The Penguin Book of Brazilian Short Stories, and re-translating a French children's classic.
Daniel very kindly fitted me into his very busy schedule, so I spoke to him over a zoom call from his hotel room in Nepal where he is about to hold some workshops for translators.
Links to ‘If This Be Magic:
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/If-This-Magic-Shakespeare-Translation/dp/1805301624/ref=sr_1_1?
Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/If-This-Magic-Shakespeare-Translation/dp/0593801660/ref=sr_1_1?
UK Publishers Website: https://canongate.co.uk/books/5026-if-this-be-magic-the-unlikely-art-of-shakespeare-in-translation/
USA Publishes Website: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743377/if-this-be-magic-by-daniel-hahn/
Support the podcast at:
www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com
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21 September 2026, 5:30 am - 35 minutes 54 secondsCymbeline: 'Tis Slander, Whose Edge is Sharper Than the Sword’
Episode 232:
Although ‘Coriolanus’ is officially Shakespeare’s last Roman tragedy his next play, ‘Cymbeline’, is set in the Roman period, but in England, and suggests that Shakespeare was still deeply attracted to Roman history, although in this case his plundering of Roman history was not directly from Plutarch, but another of his favourite sources. There are some themes in ‘Cymbeline’ that you will find familiar from ‘Coriolanus’ and will encounter again in ‘The Tempest’, but once again we have a play from Shakespeare that is not quite like any other of his, despite some shared themes with the later plays. For many Cymbeline remains an enigmatic play, or a flawed experiment, or an example of the work of a playwright growing tired with his work, and perhaps something of all of that is present in the play, but there is, I think, a good argument that Shakespeare was in fact still experimenting with form and content and responding to concerns of his time in his plays just as he always had done.
The dating of the play
The early printing of the play
‘Innogen’ Vs ‘Imogen’
The sources for the play
A summary of a complicated plot
‘Cymbeline’ as a tragicomedy
The comic character of Cloten
James 1st as represented by King Cymbeline
The historical Britain represented in the play
The nobility of the British characters in the play
Iachimo, the other Roman characters and the English attitude towards Italians
The sons of Balarius
Imogen – a great Shakespeare heroine or slightly unsatisfying?
A brief critical history of the play
The later performance history of the play
Support the podcast at:
www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com
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14 September 2026, 5:30 am - 42 minutes 53 secondsDeath by Shakespeare: A Conversation with Kathryn Harkup
Episode 231:
Shakespeare in noted for the diversity of deaths in the plays and the way that he represents the mechanics of those deaths. My guest for this episode has written a book on this very subject, ‘Death by Shakespeare’, who’s subtitle ‘Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts’, gives just a hint of that diversity. In the book Kathryn Harkup casts a scientific eye over the varied and creative ways that Shakespeare’s characters die and both questions and admires the accuracy of the portrayals of death in the plays and looks at how Shakespeare’s audience would have received these events, and much more.
Kathryn Harkup is a former chemist turned writer and science communicator. Her interests are in anything gothic, gory and geeky, and preferably all three. She has written several books on the crossover between science, literature and pop culture including The Secret Lives of the Elements, The Secret Lives of Molecules, A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie, Making the Monster: The Science of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Death by Shakespeare: Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts, Superspy Science: Science, Death and Tech in the World of James Bond and Vampirology: The Science of Horror’s Most Famous Fiend. Her latest book is V is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death.
I spoke to Kathryn over a zoom call
Links to ‘Death By Shakespeare’
Katherine’s Website: https://harkup.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B084RG3PXD
Publisher’s website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/death-by-shakespeare-9781472958204
Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Shakespeare-Snakebites-Stabbings-Broken/dp/1472958209/ref=sr_1_1
Support the podcast at:
www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com
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7 September 2026, 5:30 am - 33 minutes 48 secondsCoriolanus: ‘What is the City but the People?’
Episode 230:
Shakespeare probably did not realise it, but his next offering would be his last tragedy and his last Roman play, but for this one he reached back into a much earlier Rome than the world of Caesar, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra that he had previously mined. ‘Coriolanus’, the choice of the story of the legendary Caius Martius, a 5th century BC Roman general who was both fated and vilified during his political career and who was also known for his antipathy towards a hungry Roman population, might have been inspired by recent events in England. We can’t be certain of that, but whatever the case there it is quite clearly one of Shakespeare’s most political tragedies which has become a play that perhaps more than any other in the cannon has been used to make political points, particularly when we consider productions in the last century.
The dating of the play
The play at the Blackfriars Theatre and in the First Folio
The sources for the play
A summary of the plot
Coriolanus as a political play, but not representative of his own views
The question of how power should be granted
The character of Coriolanus
The use of language as an expression of character
The character and speech of Menenius
The character and speech of Volumina
The pivotal moment of silence in the play
The performance history of the play
A final word on the play from Willian Hazlitt
Support the podcast at:
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31 August 2026, 5:30 am - 49 minutes 53 secondsShakespeare on Sex: A Conversation with Marc Berley
Episode 229:
It has been long recognised that Shakespeare included a lot of sex references in his plays, many of which are now quite obscure to the modern viewer. Recently a book called ‘Shakespeare on Sex’ caught my eye and I had an entertaining time reading it and thinking on the different perspective it offers on Shakespeare when seen through the lens of how Shakespeare thought about sex for his plays.
I was very pleased when author Marc Berley agreed to come on the podcast to discuss the book, although it did throw up a question immediately about how we could speak frankly about this subject on the podcast. As you will hear we were still struggling a bit with that question as we spoke. I hope we got the balance right, but be warned we talk about the language and mechanics of sex as they appear in the plays and hence I have marked this episode up as ‘explicit’.
Marc Berley was professor of English at Rutgers and Barnard/Columbia. His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in the Iowa Review, the Threepenny Review, Lit Hub, and newspapers nationwide. He has appeared on BBC and PBS and been covered by Reuters, USA Today, the Washington Post, and ABC’s The View. He holds a BA, MA, and PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia. The author of ‘After the Heavenly Tune’ and editor of ‘Reading the Renaissance’, he is founding editor of the award-winning literary magazine LitMag. He lives in New York.
Find out more about Marc and his work at: https://marcberley.com/
Amazon UK link to 'Shakespeare on Sex: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare-Sex-Wills-Shaped-Liberated/dp/1510786465
Amazon US link to 'Shakespeare on Sex': https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Sex-Wills-Shaped-Liberated/dp/1510786465
Publishers website link: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510786462/shakespeare-on-sex/
Support the podcast at:
www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com
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17 August 2026, 5:30 am - 36 minutes 8 secondsEpicene: ‘Silence in a Woman is Like Speech in a Man’
Episode 228:
About the same time that Shakespeare was retelling the story of Pericles Ben Jonson was writing ‘Epicene, or the Silent Woman’, a play set very firmly in his home turf of London. It had been three years since Jonson had written for the public stage, which is not to say that his last play ‘Volpone’ was not a success, but he was occupied with producing masques for the King and the court, working with Inigo Jones, which a much more profitable endeavour for him personally than another satire for the public to judge. In those three years he produced seven court entertainments, so he was far from idle. Whatever the case ‘Epicene’ is another Jonson play that had a tricky start in life, although on the scale of some of his previous issues with the law and failures on the stage he probably did not feel too bad about this one.
Dating and the first performances of the play
The Whitefriars Theatre
The sources for the play
The publication history of the play
A synopsis of the plot
The first reception of ‘Epicene’
Lady Arabella Stuart’s complaint
The location of the Whitefriars Theatre
The two prologues to the play
Jonson’s attitude to gender roles
The Strand and the new West End
The noise of the city
The character of Morose
The supporting characters
Women, clothes, and the artifice of their appearance
Captain and mistress Otter
The final reveal in the play
Religious references in the play
When Jonson brings himself into the text
The performance history of the play and its influences
Support the podcast at:
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10 August 2026, 5:30 am - 52 minutes 54 secondsLighting the Indoor Theatre: A Conversation with Nic Brownlee
Episode 227
One of the questions that immediately arises when we consider the indoor theatres is how they were lit, although there are also many other questions about how performing indoors was informed by the experience of the touring companies and how it changed the nature of playing itself.
Very early in my journey through Shakespeare for the podcast I met Nic Brownlee who was then in the throes of completing his study into indoor theatre lighting, so the idea for this episode has been on my mind for a long time and I’m pleased that now Nic has finished his study I can bring you this discussion at an appropriate moment in the podcast timeline.
Nic Brownlie recently graduated with a PhD from the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham, completing a thesis focused on the effects of candlelight at Shakespeare’s Blackfriars playhouse. Nic currently runs the A Place to Write retreat centre in North Wales with his wife, Wendy, where they offer annual Shakespeare retreats exploring different genres of Shakespeare’s plays. In a varied prior career, he completed an English degree at the University of Hull, trained at Mountview Theatre School in London, and worked as an actor, theatre director and stage lighting designer for many years, including managing his own educational Shakespeare company. He has taught acting, stage lighting, and English Literature in a variety of educational settings, from secondary schools to higher education establishments, and he is currently working on a series of academic articles and a book detailing his research into Shakespeare’s late plays.
I first met Nic when I attended a three day retreat at ‘A Place to Write’ where we read and watched and discussed three Shakespeare comedies, among other things, so I can personally recommend the work he and Wendy are doing there. I talked to Nic over a zoom call from A Place To Write where he was somewhere between guests Breakfasts and planning his next play sessions and opened out conversation asking about how ‘A Place To Write’ came to be.
Find details for 'A Place To Write' Shakespeare and writing retreats at: www.aplacetowrite.co.uk
Support the podcast at:
www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com
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3 August 2026, 5:30 am - 34 minutes 18 secondsPericles: ‘Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss’
Episode 226:
Last time I took you through Macbeth, still one of Shakespeare’s most performed plays, but now we come to one that is rarely seen and vies with ‘King John’, ‘Two Noble Kinsman’ and ‘Timon of Athens’ as the least performed Shakespeare play. ‘Pericles’ is also a play that did not appear in the first folio and in fact did not make it into a folio edition until 1664 with the second printing of the third folio. More of that history in a moment, but it certainly raises interesting questions about why Hemmings and Condell did not include it in the first folio.
The dating and early performance history of the play
The printing history of the play
The source material for the play
‘Pericles’ as a collaboration
A short word about George Wilkins
A brief synopsis of the play
The riddle that reveals incest
The importance of a good name and family
Brides and fathers contrasted in the play
The Mediterranean locations of the play
How time is placed and passes in the play
The role of Gower in the play
The role of the gods in the play
The recognition scene
The narrative inconsistencies in the play
‘Pericles’ as a bitter-sweet comedy
Critical reception of the play
The later performance history of the play
Support the podcast at:
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27 July 2026, 5:30 am - 56 minutes 50 secondsShakespeare and Biblical Allusion: A Conversation with Paul Fried - Part 2
Episode 225:
Last time my guest Paul Fried and I discussed Biblical Allusion in Shakespeare with particular reference to Hamlet. This is the second part of our conversation, so please do make sure you have listened to part one before continuing here, things will make a lot more sense if you do.
I first came across Paul’s Blog, Hamlet’s Bible, when I was researching my episodes on King Lear and I was very pleased to find that not only was it useful for those episodes but was a series of very interesting posts relating to Biblical allusion in Shakespeare, so, of course, I asked Paul, if he would like to come onto the podcast to share some of his insights into this subject.
Paul is a retired college lecturer who has devoted years of study to Shakespeare and the bible and his blog, now in it’s tenth year, has become his way of sharing his research prior to what he hopes will be a published volume on Biblical allusion in Hamlet. He has also contributed several papers to Shakespeare conferences, most recently at the Shakespeare Association of America conference held in Denver in April 2026.
I spoke to Paul from his home in Minnesota over a zoom call.
Link to Paul’s blog ‘Hamlet’s Bible’: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/
Link to ‘Hamlet’s Bible’ on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamletsbible/
Link to Paul’s account on ‘X’: https://x.com/padrianfried
Support the podcast at:
www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com
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