Statis and a statue: The Winter’s Tale, time, and performance

Tuesday 26 August 2025 11:30am

Professor Michael Dobson (Director of The Shakespeare Institute) considers some of the ways in which productions of The Winter’s Tale have explored Time. Drawing on performances from the seventeenth century to the present day Dobson will reveal how stagings have presented the play’s relationship to historical time, stage time, and clock time. The session will reflect on what it means to personify Time and freeze time in the form a statue.

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"A sad tale's best for Winter": Staging The Winter’s Tale

Tuesday 26 August 2025 2pm

A curated discussion exploring how our 2025 production of The Winter’s Tale has been taken from page to stage. You will hear from members of the company including Madeline Appiah (Hermione) about the rehearsal process and choices made for this production.

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"I'm talking love": Fat Ham Q&A

Wednesday 27 August 10am

A Q&A session focusing on the process of staging Fat Ham, and the literal and metaphorical ghosts that run throughout the text. Featuring members of the Fat Ham Cast.

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Hamlet Recycled: Fat Ham and it's peers

Wednesday 27 August 2025 2pm

Professor Graham Saunders (Professor of Drama, University of Birmingham) considers James Ijames’ Fat Ham (2021) as one of the latest in a history of appropriations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Focusing on rewritings by British dramatists, the session will consider the different ways Hamlet has been put to use by dramatists including Bernard Kopps, Tom Stoppard and Howard Barker.

The session will also consider the various ways in which Hamlet as a base text operates in Fat Ham. To what extent does Ijames’ play stand alone in the theatrical landscape or exist as a Hamlet satellite.  

Spoiler alert: This session will discuss a variety of moments from the show.

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Shakespeare for a New Generation: First Encounters with the RSC 

Friday 29 August 2025 10am

A curated discussion between Jacqui O’Hanlon (RSC Deputy Executive Director & Director of Creative Learning and Engagement) and Justine Themen (Director First Encounters: King Lear) focusing on the joys, challenges and quirks of Shakespeare in performance for young people. Using the RSC’s flagship First Encounters programme as a primary example, the session will spotlight touring, adapting, directing and producing the works of Shakespeare for and with young people. This session will include an insight into the ongoing rehearsals for our upcoming tour of King Lear.

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 "…and there an end": Reimagining The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Friday 29 August 2025 11.30am

Approaching Shakespeare can be a daunting task, even more so when reworking a lesser-performed text for a wide audience. Joanna Bowman (Director, The Two Gentlemen of Verona), and cast of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, join us to explore their rehearsal process, and the key decisions they’ve made from concept to performance to explore the text.

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In conversation with Prasanna Puwanarajah and Samuel West

Friday 29 August 2pm

In conversation with RSC veterans Prasanna Puwanarajah (Director, Twelfth Night and Venice Preserv'd) and Samuel West (Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Richard II). In this session we will talk about a career of Shakespeare, the eye of a Director and Actor in exploring text, and look at the recent RSC Production of Twelfth Night, now transferring to the Barbican.

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