Beyond Shakespeare

Recorded live last year, this is the post show discussion of our adaptation of the opening of A Mirror for Magistrates which covers The Fall of Richard II. The audio adaptation is available on the pod now. After the Fall - Post Show Discussion Hosted by Robert Crighton, with Dr Harriet Archer, Professor Thomas Betteridge and Dr Stephen Longstaffe With readers from the company, Liza Graham and Vale...

Speech! Speech! Occasional scenes and speeches from plays, voted for by those you support our work. This is a speech from The Arraignment of Paris by George Peele, recorded live at our Revels season on Saturday 16th December 2023. With Sarah Blake as Diana. For more on the play The Arraignment of Paris visit our playlist on the play - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5rtIlvo8sQ&list=PLflmEwgdf...

Recorded live last year, this is our adaptation of the opening of A Mirror for Magistrates which covers The Fall of Richard II. We performed it live, and there were a few issues with the recording, so I've kept the edit fairly simple. The adaptation cuts the second poem on The Two Rogers, trims a few verses, and turns into acting dialogue the editorial meeting in the book.  There was also a post s...

The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus , is the book that is the source for Christopher Marlowe's play. Chapter by chapter we will wander through the twists and turns of this story. Chapter Twenty: How Doctor Faustus desired to see hell, and of the manner how he was used therein   Our patrons also get an exploring session looking in detail at the text - join our...

It's time for some !Spoilers! for Act Four of Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe (discuss attribution with footnotes, please only write on one side of the paper at a time). The play was recorded at The White Bear Theatre on Tuesday 12th December 2023. If you’d like more on this play, there are exploring sessions galore on the YouTube . All our rehearsals, dress run, an...

In August 2024, we produced an all day event  Middleton’s Endgame: A Game at Chess LIVE! a pop up Middleton festival at The White Bear in Kennington, featuring a live performance of A Game at Chess, discussions of the play, a look at Middleton’s last public work, the 1626 Lord Mayor’s show, and other selections of writing from across his life. The whole event, as ever, was recorded, and we're rele...

One of our follow on projects from the readings of The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus has been to try and figure out how the process of adaptation from the book to the play might have happened. Coinciding with the Marlowe Society of America's conference in 2024, we pulled together a short play looking at the writing of the opening of the play. The resulting play Faustus to...

This week we're discussing... (sinister music plays) Horror, and whether we can sensibly describe some of the early modern and medieval drama as Horror? How far can we push a modern genre onto an older form. Joining me in this discussion is Dr Rebekah King, who graduated from Cambridge with a PhD in English looking at how magicians were depicted on the early modern stage. As well as being a resear...

It's time for some !Spoilers! for Act Three of Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe (discuss attribution with footnotes, please only write on one side of the paper at a time). The play was recorded at The White Bear Theatre on Tuesday 12th December 2023. If you’d like more on this play, there are exploring sessions galore on the YouTube . All our rehearsals, dress run, a...

The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus , is the book that is the source for Christopher Marlowe's play. Chapter by chapter we will wander through the twists and turns of this story. Chapter Nineteen: How Doctor Faustus fell into despair with himself, for having put forth a question unto his spirit, they fell at variance, whereupon the rout of Devils appeared unt...

We were invited to follow the Behind the Scenes journey of the Oxford Mystery Cycle performed at St Edmund Hall on Saturday, 26 April 2025. This is a mix of cast and audience discussion of the event as it was happening. Many thanks to the organisers for inviting us to wander around the event with microphones. Recorded by Liza Graham and Robert Crighton. Watch the plays here! https://medieval.ox.ac...

Hello! It's time for our next Revels season - discount early bird season tickets are now on sale for our wonderful patrons , become a £1 tier patron to get a cheap rate season pass. Or, wait a week, and free subscribers and those one our mailing list get access too. There are four/five plays in the season, all announced on this episode. The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons –...

We have a new discussion with Professor Laurie Johnson about Leicester's Men, the playing company that ran throughout the early Elizabethan years of professional playing, whose make up, structure and plays have been difficult to pin down. But luckily, Professor Johnson has written a rather excellent book pinning all these as close to down as we might ever get. This was recorded a year ago - apolog...

It'll be a bit quiet on the pod this week, as we're doing some live shows - tickets available below - but we thought we should update you on some of the online options for our patrons, which you might want to go for. We're doing a basic live stream of rehearsal runs from Tuesday this week, around 3pm each day - become a patron and grab the link. Otherwise, more on this next week when it's all over...

Professor Liz Oakley-Brown returns to the pod to discuss the play Thersites (c.1537) attributed to Nicholas Udall and based on a dialogue by from Joannes Ravisius Textor - the play features a snail fight, and much more - part of our build up to our season of Henrician drama. This episode was recorded live on zoom on Tuesday 10th June at 7.15pm 2025. For more on the medieval manuscript side of thin...

It's time for some !Spoilers! for Act Two of Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe (discuss attribution with footnotes, please only write on one side of the paper at a time). The play was recorded at The White Bear Theatre on Tuesday 12th December 2023. If you’d like more on this play, there are exploring sessions galore on the YouTube . All our rehearsals, dress run, and...

As part of the run up to Entertaining Henry we have this chat about Thomas More, prompted by Dr Joanne Paul's latest book on his life - it's a Venn diagram of a discussion, between the life of More, and the theatre world around him. Recorded live on zoom - there will be another live discussion in under two weeks time, details below. Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England by Dr Joanne Paul...

It's time for some !Spoilers! for Act One of Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe (discuss, with footnotes, please only write on one side of the paper at a time). The play was recorded at The White Bear Theatre on Tuesday 12th December 2023. We know we said Robert would be doing briefer Spoilers episodes, but that clearly didn't happen... If you’d like more on this play,...

Speech! Speech! Occasional scenes and speeches from plays, voted for by those you support our work. This is a speech from Edward II by Christopher Marlowe, recorded live at our Revels season on Tuesday 12th December 2023. With Pamela Flanagan as Isabella. Our patrons received the scene within this episode in January 2024 - 17 months early! The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons...

The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus , is the book that is the source for Christopher Marlowe's play. Chapter by chapter we will wander through the twists and turns of this story. Chapter Eighteen: A question put forth by Doctor Faustus to his Spirit, concerning Astronomy.   Our patrons also get an exploring session looking in detail at the text - join our cha...

This discussion is with organiser Matthew Sergi, Associate Professor of English (Medieval Drama), University of Toronto about the York Plays 2025. Performing on Saturday 7th June 2025 , (8th if there is rain) starting at 6am will be 17 performance groups who will present all the York Plays, repeating their performances on replica wagon stages. As ever with these discussions, we go on a number of t...

Discussing: You Can't Just Throw a Woman at it: Dramaturgical Misogyny in Early Modern Drama with Dr Nora J. Williams. Nora J. Williams is the Associate Dean for Access and Participation at BIMM University. Her first book, Canonical Misogyny, is available now from Edinburgh University Press . Her interests lie in practice-as-research, staging violence and intimacy, and feminist dramaturgies. Our p...

It's an interesting double bill episode this week, as we contemplate two pieces of evidence for one or two plays on Richard III. The first element comes from the licencing of a play, the other a reported line from a play. Are they the same play? Impossible to tell, but it helps make this episode a little more substantial. You can find the source for our text here . There is also an exposition on t...

Welcome to this other side of our new strand, a return to a promised thing for our patrons - occasional scenes and speeches from plays, voted for by those you support our work. This is a speech from The Massacre at Paris by Christopher Marlowe, recorded live at our Revels season on Tuesday 12th December 2023. With Lynsey Beauchamp as the Guise. Our patrons received the scene within this episode in...

The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus , is the book that is the source for Christopher Marlowe's play. Chapter by chapter we will wander through the twists and turns of this story. This month, we begin part 2 of the narrative... Performed by Robert Crighton Chapter Seventeen: Here followeth the second part of Doctor Faustus his life, and practises until his end...