Play by Candlelight 2021-22: preview

You know things are starting to feel a bit more normal when Shakespeare’s Globe is able to announce their winter season, with a return to the beautiful candlelit surroundings of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Intriguingly, this will be the first time that £5 tickets for productions in this performance space, with 48 standing tickets available in […]

#MindTheBard 2021: round-up

You know what? I think this hybrid form of challenge week might be here to stay. Despite the fact that it’s taken me almost a week to write this round-up post, it’s actually felt pretty manageable – and I don’t know whether I’ll have the energy to go out to the theatre every single night […]

This Wooden O: Romeo & Juliet (2021)

“Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” The traditional view of Romeo & Juliet is that of a tragic love story, but is that all it ever has to be? Not if you’re Ola Ince. Her brand new production of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, having been delayed by COVID in 2020, has finally […]

#MindTheBard: Broken Heart (Romeo & Juliet)

Let’s just say this hasn’t been the most typical of weeks, as far as the Giant Microbes are concerned, as the final pick is ‘broken heart’ – inspired by Romeo & Juliet. Though the two lovers don’t die of broken hearts, the combination of living in the pressure cooker of a familial feud (the Montagues & […]

#MindTheBard: Pox (All’s Well That Ends Well)

The great pox, or syphilis, crops up a fair amount in Shakespeare – ‘pox’ appears 23 times across 15 plays, basically thanks to it being a byword for ‘curse’ (kind of like ‘fuck this’ or ‘screw that’ now). Giant Microbes went for All’s Well That Ends Well, which I’m glad about as I’ve only seen it […]

#MindTheBard: Blood (Macbeth)

Obviously blood isn’t a disease, but its presence or absence is clearly a key difference between life & death – or, if you’re one of the Macbeths, a guilty reminder of the foul deeds on their CV. There is an awful lot of bloodshed in the Scottish Play, be it in battle, a guestroom regicide, […]

#MindTheBard: Leprosy (Henry VI, part 2)

Ah, leprosy. A disease (along with gout, syphilis & rabies) that for some reason makes me snigger, despite how terrible it would actually be to have it. It’s mentioned in a few of Shakespeare’s plays, but as the Henry VI Henriad is such a rarity, I thought this was the one to go for. This part […]

#MindTheBard: Madness (Hamlet)

Madness. Not the most sensitive or appropriate term, but simply extracted from today’s play: Hamlet. There are various different displays of what might have been understood to be ‘madness’ when Shakespeare wrote the play, but what we could now diagnose as depression, anxiety, paranoia, schizophrenia… The list goes on. But what of the Prince of Denmark […]

#MindTheBard: Boils (Coriolanus)

On this #ShakespeareSunday we head off to ancient Rome, where tempers are boiling over… The Tarquin kings have been expelled and there are riots in the street, as citizens grapple for grain; they’re also not best pleased with the general Caius Marcius, who reciprocates their contempt. The ‘microbe’ for today is the boil, which is […]

#MindTheBard 2021: Diary

As I’m not doing much in the way of reviews for this #MindTheBard, I thought the best way to keep things going throughout the week was to do a daily ‘diary’ update – this way I can give you a little bit of feedback on whatever version of the day’s play I end up seeing. […]