The English Miscellany

I have recently produced Macbeth: A Media Guide . Here is an extract from the introduction: Although the main focus in this guide is on the most influential film and TV versions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth , other audio and web-resources are also recommended. However, this guide begins by offering links to learning resources for younger children who are studying Shakespeare for the first time. Contemporary re-mediation is constantly refashioning the Shakespearean canon, drawn to the creative risk of playing with the brand and mixing up the source code, or simply aiming to make the drama more accessible to new audiences in a digital age. We have moved a long way since Mary and Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare was the primary choice for children. In fact, there is a long tradition of lavishly illustrated editions of Shakespeare, revealing that the text was seldom required to function on its own (Richmond, 2008; Rokison 2013). For instance, high quality media reso...

Immense creative opportunities arise from the adaptation of literary texts to stage productions, but too often they are merely slavish imitations and contribute only to heritage theatre. Fortunately, playwright Evan Placey has chosen to use R. L. Stevenson’s late nineteenth-century source text for inspiration in a way that connects with a range of highly contemporary issues. It’s a brilliantly thought-provoking production that contributes to current debates about science and gender, patriarchy and heteronormativity, women’s liberation, and social media as an outlet for misogyny and as an opportunity for emancipation. On an another level, it is a deeply emotional experience that is embodied in the actors’ ability to communicate issues with an emotional urgency.  The play exposes how performances and scripts create gender roles and suggests how they can be re-written. In particular, the second half of the play provides a stronger emphasis on (post)modern perspectives as...