Shakespeare and Pals: Recapping the Bard

025 The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Kings: King John (1596)

The one that you forgot Shakespeare did.
King John just can’t catch a break. He’s got challengers to the throne, war with France, and now the Pope’s getting on his back. Desperate times call for desperate measures, which include knocking off his young nephew Arthur.
Does this play deserve the obscurity it’s fallen into? Sophie and Michael find out!
Sources:
The Oxford Shakespeare: King John (Oxford University Press)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

024 Mr Sandman, Bring Me a Midsummer Nights' Dream: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman #19 and #75

Shakespeare stole all his ideas… from the god of Dreams
One of the greatest comic book series of all time, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman plays with almost all human culture, so how could Gaiman overlook Shakespeare? In The Sandman #19, Shakespeare plays Midsummer Night’s Dream for an audience of fairies. In The Sandman #75, Shakespeare longs to retire his magic pen just once he’s finished his play about Prospero laying down his magic wand.
Is Neil Gaiman’s use of Shakespeare more than just a clever idea?  Michael and Sophie find out!
Sources:
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (DC Comics)

023 This is a comedy!?: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1596)

It’s the one with the donkey-headed tradie!
An Athenian hero with his Amazon war-bride condemns a young girl to death or nunnery, so young lovers flee into the forest, followed by two other young lovers who don’t love each other yet, so a fairy king tries to fix the love quadrangle, but not before he makes his wife fall for a donkey-man mutant to get revenge on her for not handing over an royal Indian toddler.
That old chestnut.
One of Shakespeare’s most famous… comedies??? Like a lot of Shakespearian comedies, this one has a dark edge. But does it work as farce or drama? Join Michael and Sophie to find out!
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
The Oxford Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Oxford University Press)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

022 “A pound of your fair flesh, Astro Boy!”: Osamu Tezuka’s ベニスの商人/Merchant of Venice (1959)

The Walt Disney of Japan took a break from Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion.
Did you know Osamu Tezuka adapted The Merchant of Venice? It’s like if Walt Disney adapted Crime and Punishment… which Osamu Tezuka also did… Tezuka had range! 
Does Tezuka’s style capture the folktale darkness of the Merchant of Venice? Tune in to find out!
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
Japanese edition:
Osamu Tezuka, 虹のプレリュード/Rainbow Prelude (Tezuka Productions) (https://bookwalker.jp/def2c50a53-360e-4319-841d-ec4fd920bf7e/) 
Christopher Harding, The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives (Penguin Books)

021 Disaster Gays: Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (1593)

Gayer than Shakespeare – Got your attention?
Finding queer subtext in renaissance plays usually takes digging. Not here though. Marlowe has his King and boytoy howling sweet nothings to each other. And this is the Christian 1590s – surely these two disaster gays have a happy ending?
Gay love, political intrigue, rebellion, far too many characters – can old Kit Marlowe match the quality and convolutedness of Shakespeare’s history plays? Join Michael and Sophie to find out!
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays (Penguin Classics)
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0007%3Aact%3D1%3Ascene%3D1)

020 The Prequels Were Better: Richard II (1595)

The Prequel Tetralogy begins!
Before the Richard III, before Henry VI, before the War of the Roses, there was unmanly, luxurious Richard II. Under his all-powerful negligence, a squabble between nobles becomes a cause for rebellion against the crown, with Henry Bolingbroke becoming Henry IV!
... spoilers...
Sandwiched between Richard III and the Henry plays, has this history play been unfairly overshadowed?
Join us to find out!
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
The Oxford Shakespeare: Richard II (Oxford University Press)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

019 Five Tudor Sonnets and Us Being Idiots

Turns out we’re publishing this one…
 
We’re going on an unstructured ramble about the most structured poetic form. This month, we’re looking at five Tudor sonnets – and only two of them are Shakespeare!
 
A sonnet might just be fourteen, but they pack a lot of food for thought into each one. Join us as we discuss: 
Thomas Wyatt’s Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where Is an Hind
Philip Sidney’s “Stella, Since Thou So Right A Princess Art”
Richard Barnfield’s “Cherry-lipt Adonis in his snowie shape”
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 10 and 55
 
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
 
Sources:
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The Encyclopedia Britannica

018 Onii-san~!!: John Ford’s ”’Tis Pity She’s a W****” (1629)

We really have been trying to make this podcast more family friendly...
Here we have an edgy take on Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet’s problem was there families were too far apart. Giovanni and Annabella’s families are too close. They’re the same family. They’re brother and sister.
But that’s not all, we’ve also got street fights, dumb nephews, evil Spaniards, and scene-stealing banditti.
Is this Renaissance tragedy more than an exercise in edginess? Join us as we discuss “‘Tis Pity She’s a Sex-Positive Lady”!
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
John Ford, ed. Sonia Massai, Arden Early Modern Drama: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Bloomsbury Publishing
John Ford, entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Ford-British-dramatist

017 Boy Meets Girl, Boy and Girl Die: Romeo and Juliet

Here’s a hot-take: Romeo and Juliet is a love story.
Shakespeare’s tragic love story is so iconic I don’t even need to say anything about it. You’ve Romeo and Juliet with New York gangs and garden gnomes. But join us to see all the details and subtext the updates miss.
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
The Oxford Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (Oxford University Press)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

016 Carry On College Princes: Love’s Labour’s Lost

You have no idea what this one’s about, do you? Great title though.
Would you believe this romantic comedy about four nobles trying to become celibate scholars actually holds up quite well? Would you believe it has some of Shakespeare’s feistiest heroines? Would you believe it has one of his most realistic depictions of causal romance? 
Well, you’re just going have to listen to find out.
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
The Oxford Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost (Oxford University Press)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)
Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare: The Biography (Vintage)
Johnathan Bate, How the Classics Made Shakespeare (Princeton)
Anna Beer, The Life of the Author, William Shakespeare (Wiley Blackwell)
Peter Levi, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare (Henry Holt & Co)
Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford University Press)