In order to create an archive of the Shakespeare 400 activities that took place across all the partner organisations in 2016, a team of students at King's College London, from various disciplines and levels of study, reviewed as many of the events as possible.
Below are all of the reviews. Use the search box to find reviews
of a particular event.
Review by Georgia Clarke, MA Classical Art and Archaeology The National Theatre’s ‘5 Hamlets’ exhibition documents five of its productions of ‘Hamlet’, spanning five decades. The exhibition shows the play’s adaptability and combines audio material with set models, costumes, and props to compare the five productions. Read more...
Review by Andrew Home, MA in Philosophy It is surely the assumption of many that the works of Shakespeare received swift translation upon their success. Britain’s closest European neighbours must have heard some rumour of his success and clamoured for a translation into their native tongue. Read more...
Review by Ruth Sherrington, PhD candidate, Classics The third in a series of three talks about Shakespeare at the National Theatre, held to coincide with the 400th anniversary of his death, this talk centred particularly on the theme of Family, following on from Old Age and Migration. Read more...
Review by Shweta A. Joshi The majestic Chancellor's Hall at the Senate House Library, London, received the honour of hosting the keynote lecture of 'Shakespeare: Metamorphosis', an exhibition commemorating the 400th anniversary of the legendary bard's death. Based on the 'Seven Stages of Man' soliloquy in the play 'As You Like It', the exhibition explores the evolution of Shakespeare's art until the present and projects the metamorphosis of his works in the future. Read more...
Review by Colleen M Curran, PhD Candidate in Palaeography & Manuscript Studies As soon as you enter Senate House the enthusiasm of the team behind the Metamorphosis exhibition is evident. A mural of Shakespeare covers the grand staircase and excerpts from some of his plays are arranged in bright, colourful displays in the elevators where motion-activated audio recordings are also played. Read more...
Review by Jamie Weisz, MA Early Modern History “If you want to learn about current affairs, go and see a Shakespeare history play.” This was the advice James Wright, resident Built Heritage Specialist with the Museum of London Archaeology team, told us before his talk on Shakespeare’s revered historical play, Henry V. As part of MOLA’s Shakespeare 400 events programme, Wright unpicked the history behind the play, both in terms of its historic content and the context in which it was written. Read more...
Review by Daniela Tejada, MA Arts & Cultural Management The reading of “The Devil is an Ass”, part of the Read Not Dead series at Shakespeare’s Globe, plays homage to the debut of Ben Jonson’s play, which is thought to have taken place four hundred years ago following Shakespeare’s death. Read more...
Review by Gemma Miller, PhD Candidate, English This exciting exhibition looks at ten landmark performances across the 400-year history of Shakespeare’s plays, from the first stagings of Hamlet in 1600 at the newly-constructed Globe theatre to the Wooster Group’s postmodern, multi-media pastiche of Hamlet at the Edinburgh Festival in 2013. Read more...
Review by Jiabao Sun, PhD candidate in Chinese Studies Can a Shakespeare play acted by one person? Cathy Naden did it in her version of Antony and Cleopatra in Forced Entertainment’s Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare, which played in the Pit at the Barbican. Read more...
Review by Stefanie Jirsak, PhD candidate in Management Research A festival that is typically overwhelming and exhausting, and where one struggles to get an immersive experience with the event and the theme? No, not the case with Play On. The event defied any stereotype of festivals being crammed with a lot of breadth, but little depth. Read more...
