Patrick Page on King Lear and Shakespeare's Villains
Patrick Page tells us how he gets inside the mind of Lear in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 2023 production.
J.R. Thorp on Learwife
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 181 A banished queen receives word that her husband and three daughters are dead. Learwife, a new novel by J.R. Thorp, picks up where Shakespeare’s King Lear leaves off: The queen is Berte, Lear’s wife and Regan,…
Shakespeare and Folktales
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 138 You probably know where Shakespeare got the ideas for his plays. His Histories come from Holinshed’s Chronicles. Caesar and other Roman plays depend on Plutarch’s Lives. The Comedy of Errors is based on Plautus’s Menaechmi. But what…
Glenda Jackson
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 121 The great Glenda Jackson is back on the stage. In 1992, the Emmy and two-time Academy Award winner was elected to Parliament. She spent the next 23 years in Britain’s House of Commons. Since returning to…
Edward St. Aubyn: Dunbar
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 84 The title character of King Lear becomes a media mogul in Edward St. Aubyn’s new novel, Dunbar, which retells the story of one of Shakespeare’s most dysfunctional families for the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Edward St. Aubyn…
How 'King Lear' Inspired 'Empire'
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 69 You can find Shakespeare in all sorts of places, including the Fox TV series Empire. The story of an aging ruler – in this case the head of a hip-hop music dynasty – who sets his…
James Shapiro: The Year of Lear
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 32 1606 was a critical year for Shakespeare’s creative career. It was the year in which he wrote King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. It was also a time in which the king of England, James…