Shakespeare and Pals: Recapping the Bard

028 A Girl in Trousers!? Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s “The Roaring Girl” (1611)

Boy loves girl. Boy’s father thinks the girl isn’t rich enough. Boy pretends to be in love with a drag king.
We’re bringing back the “explicit” tag just for this episode. Tommy M and Tommy D’s saucy talents are on full display in this bawdy City Comedy. There are more innuendos than you can shake your rapier at. Is this play only memorable for its titular cross-dresser, or is there more meat on its bones?
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources:
Librivox production of The Roaring Girl https://librivox.org/the-roaring-girl-by-thomas-middleton-and-thomas-dekker/
English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology, eds. David Bevington et al. (W. W. Norton & Company)

027 Neither A Borrower Nor A Lender Be: The Merchant of Venice (1598)

One of Shakespeare’s great… comedies????
Bassanio needs some cash to impress the wealthy heiress Portia. This couldn’t possibly lead to his best friend getting imprisoned and disemboweled.
One of Shakespeare's great plays, full of poetry and incident and nuance, and Romance with a capital R. Is it toppled by the antisemitism at its centre?
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Sources: 
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice (Oxford University Press)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

026 Neo-Verona is about to EXPLODE: Studio Gonzo’s “Romeo X Juliet” Eps. 1-3 (2007)

It’s Romeo and Juliet as an anime! What more do you want?
It’s Shakespeare’s tale, but not as we know it. Verona is a far future city in the sky, and all the nobles ride pegasi. Years ago, the evil Lord Montague massacred the Capulets – all but one. Juliet survived, and now spends her adolescence cross-dressing as a boy and moonlighting as a masked vigilante. But how will her life change when she meets Romeo at ball?
Join us for flying horses, daring-do, and shoujo romance!
Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
Romeo X Juliet can be watched on Crunchyroll

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