A riposte to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew Fletcher’s play is a riposte to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: in this lecture I discuss their interconnectedness as a way to identify Fletcher’s particular dramaturgy.
16 November 2015, 3:33 pm
53 minutes 19 seconds
Tis Pity She's a Whore: John Ford
Reboot of Romeo and Juliet and other Elizabethan plays This lecture discusses the play’s reboot of Romeo and Juliet and other Elizabethan plays, its sensationalism, and its connections to anatomy.
11 November 2015, 10:49 am
45 minutes 59 seconds
The Witch Of Edmonton
Witchcraft and bigamy. A collaborative play about witchcraft, bigamy - and a talking Dog - what more could you want?
3 November 2015, 10:28 am
53 minutes 46 seconds
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside: Thomas Middleton
This lecture discusses comedy, fertility, and all those illegitimate children in this play about sex, economics and meat.
27 October 2015, 11:33 am
48 minutes 37 seconds
The Alchemist: Ben Jonson
Written in the context of plague in London, The Alchemist’s plot and language are deeply concerned with speed and speculation.
27 October 2015, 11:21 am
49 minutes 10 seconds
Dr Faustus: Christopher Marlowe
My lecture on this infernal play discusses Elizabethan religion, the revisions to the play, and whether we should think about James Bond in its final minutes.
26 October 2015, 3:30 pm
37 minutes 41 seconds
The Duchess of Malfi: John Webster
In dramatizing a woman's sexual choices in a notably sympathetic manner, this tragedy articulates perennial questions about female autonomy and class distinction.
24 November 2009, 11:31 am
48 minutes 15 seconds
The Roaring Girl: Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker
Based on a contemporary scandal of a woman who dressed in male clothing, this play of topsy-turvy genders has fun with some very modern ideas about sexuality, identity and whether we are what we wear.
13 November 2009, 4:22 pm
45 minutes 30 seconds
The Revenger's Tragedy: Thomas Middleton
A blackly camp tragedy - Hamlet without the narcissism - set in a court corrupted by lust and self-interest, this play is both fascinated and repelled by its own depravity.
6 November 2009, 12:51 pm
45 minutes 33 seconds
The Shoemaker's Holiday: Thomas Dekker
Like a Busby Berkeley depression-era musical, Dekker's comedy is a feel-good antidote to a context of shortages, political malaise and general pessimism, but real life in the shape of war, class antagonism and civic tensions, always threatens to intrude.
6 November 2009, 12:40 pm
41 minutes 38 seconds
Arden of Faversham: Anon
A true crime story of the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife and her lover, this play is concerned with the politics of the household, with gender roles within marriage, and presents a black comedy of botched murder attempts rather like The Ladykillers.