Such Stuff: The Shakespeare's Globe Podcast

November 11 2018 marks the centenary of Armistice Day, one hundred years since the end of the First World War. Ahead of Shakespeare and Remembrance here at the Globe, we ask: what can the real experience of war teach us about performing Shakespeare and what can performing Shakespeare teach us about war and its effects?

We chat to Neil Davies, Shaun Johnson and Max Hamilton McKenzie, ex-military personnel who will be performing in Shakespeare and Remembrance, about their journeys since leaving the Forces and what art and performance has offered them as therapy and rehabilitation. Shakespeare and Remembrance will include extracts from Shakespeare’s plays alongside original pieces written by those in the show about their own experiences of conflict.

This episode does contains explicit language, and references to suicide.

In this episode of Such Stuff, we take a closer look at history plays, old and new, asking: why do we turn to the history play at times of crisis and why do they continue to speak so deeply to our contemporary fears and anxieties?

We go behind the scenes with the company of Eyam as they explore the village, and speak to writer Matt Hartley about why it was so important to tell this extraordinary story now, and in the ‘civic space’ of the Globe theatre. 

Michelle Terry gives us a sneak preview of what to expect from next year’s summer season, and Research Fellow and lecturer Dr Will Tosh digs deeper into Shakespeare’s history plays, when we reach for them and why, with Professor Lucy Munro.

This summer, community groups, both local and wider, came together with our sonnet ensemble to fill the Globe with the sounds of all 154 sonnets for our very first Sonnet Sunday. Director Athena Stevens and poets Rummer, Gary and Charlie – who met through the arts and mental health charity CoolTan Arts – take us behind the scenes. We ask what poetry means to them, what they made of working on Shakespeare for the first time, and why Sonnet 29 resonated with their own experiences.

This week on Such Stuff, we follow up on our first ever Shakespeare and Race festival, and ask: what does it mean to be a person of colour and study, teach, perform and read Shakespeare? 

Our own Dr Farah Karim-Cooper sat down with Professor Ayanna Thompson, to hear her thoughts on casting Shakespeare here and in the US, and follow up on her controversial proposition that Othello is an irredeemable play. 

Keith Hamilton-Cobb brings us extracts of his solo play American Moor, which was part of the Shakespeare and Race festival, and which examines the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of Shakespeare’s Othello. 

Farah talks to actor Aaron Pierre, currently playing Cassio in Othello, about performing to Globe audiences, and how he sees the role of Cassio. Finally, Farah spoke to Leaphia Darko, performing in Love’s Labour’s Lost, about her experiences of studying and performing Shakespeare and classical theatre at drama school.

Composer and Globe Music Associate James Maloney takes us behind the scenes on how to compose the music for two shows in just ten weeks, when you can’t write a single note before you get into the rehearsal room… how do you go about composing as an ensemble, and how do you hold your nerve to the very last minute? Featuring music from the Globe Ensemble’s production of Hamlet.

This week on Such Stuff, we go behind the scenes with the Globe Ensemble and ask: what happens when any person can play any character, and what do audiences make of this?

Director Federay Holmes and Research Fellow Dr Will Tosh explain the inspiration behind the ensemble, and how Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were radical before their time… They also talk about casting, gender swapping and giving actors parts they can really play. 

Actor Shubham Saraf talks us through the rehearsal room, and asks whether audiences are ready to see his Ophelia, and Michelle Terry sits down with Jack Laskey to talk Hamlet and Rosalind, and whether gender really plays a role in playing these roles.

In this episode of Such Stuff, we take a look back at Refugee Week at the Globe and ask: how can art respond to the crises of our times? We go behind the scenes on Refugee Week at the Globe, talking to the artists who have taken part in this nationwide celebration of refugees.  Writer Jude Christian and director Elayce Ismail discuss Nanjing, a monologue which reflects on pacifism and the responsibility of the individual from 1937 to the present. Jude tells her own family story, the story of the notorious Nanjing Massacre and asks what each of us can do when atrocities occur across the world.  Syrian Canadian visual artist and educator Dima Karout takes us behind the scenes on her Border Installation, explaining why she wanted to get audiences to participate and think about their own lives - and the lives of refugees - a little differently, and shares some of the incredible contributions left by our audiences.  Finally, actors and refugees bring you The Stranger’s Case, Shakespeare’s cry for compassion for the plight of refugees which is sadly still so relevant.

In the first ever episode of Such Stuff we’ll be asking: why is it so important to reclaim the untold stories of women from history?

Emilia Bassano was a poet, writer, feminist and contemporary of Shakespeare, and until recently, her contribution to the literary canon was largely forgotten. Now she is the subject of a new play, Emilia, and the Emilia’s that appear throughout Shakespeare’s work have underpinned the entire summer season.

Is she the dark lady of the sonnets? Was she the inspiration for the Emilia’s in Othello and The Winter’s Tale? We explore what we do and don’t know about the real Emilia Bassano with Research Fellow Dr Will Tosh and go behind the scenes with writer Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and director Nicole Charles on new play Emilia, which takes an imaginative leap from the evidence of her life and tells an extraordinary story.

We’ll also be taking a look at imbalances off of our stages, and speaking to Emma Gersch of Band of Mothers about the missing women in our workforces.

And finally, Kate Pankhurst, author of bestselling Fantastically Great Women Who Made History, chats to us about why young children - girls and boys! - need more stories of women from history.

Such Stuff is the new podcast from Shakespeare's Globe.  What happens when the old and the new collide? We'll be looking at Shakespeare's transformative impact on the world around us, asking questions about programming, gender, race, social justice and their relationship to Shakespeare.  Meet your hosts Imogen Greenberg, Dr Farah Karim-Cooper and Michelle Terry, who will take you behind the scenes, into rehearsal rooms and onto our stages.  Subscribe to hear all the latest from Such Stuff.