1. Reviewing Shakespeare
with Dr Paul Edmondson and Dr Paul Prescott
Sponsored by the Arden Shakespeare
#reviewingshakespeare

2. www.bloomsbury.com/arden

4. A Year of Shakespeare
and new directionsand new directions
in academicin academic
reviewingreviewing

5. Crrrrrrrrritttticcccc
And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been
love’s whip,
A very beadle to a humorous sigh,
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable,
A domineering pedant o’er the boy [Cupid]
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
(Love’s Labour’s Lost 3.1.169-73)

6. Nightwatch Constables
vs.
Domineering Pedants

8. The rise of academic reviewing
Shakespeare Survey – 1948
Shakespeare Quarterly – 1950
Cahiers Élisabéthains – 1972
Shakespeare Bulletin - 1982

9. Busting the joint,
joining the beat
[T]he public critic has been dismembered by two opposing forces: the tendency
of academic criticism to become increasingly inward-looking and non-evaluative,
and the momentum for journalistic and popular criticism to become a much
more democratic, dispersive affair, no longer left in the hands of the experts.
Rónán McDonald, The Death of the Critic. London: Continuum, 2007: ix.
[T]oo often members of the postmodern professoriate […] sound as if they live
in some very distant world. Not an elite ivory tower as in the past, but something
like a strange, perhaps perverse, cult […] I’m not sure if it’s a prison or a
madhouse or both. In any event, the inmates show little desire to ‘bust the joint’.
Curtis White, The Middle Mind: why Americans don’t think for themselves.
London: Allen Lane, 2004: p.5

11. 'This is an extraordinary collection of
essays recording the events of the World
Shakespeare Festival, summoning up its
kaleidoscopic diversity, its global reach, its
oddities, triumphs and provocations- it's
Shakespeare criticism as you have never
encountered it before, scholarly,
experimental, instant, and at times
bizarre.’
Dame Margaret Drabble
11

12. ‘The written response we have in mind is something
of a hybrid – part blog, part review, part provocation,
depending on the writer and his/her experience of the
production. We are not looking for an authoritative,
densely detailed and argued verdict on the
production, more a lively, unguarded and informal set
of thoughts and impressions.’

13. Newspaper coverage of the
Globe to Globe Festival
The Guardian only newspaper to review all productions
The Financial Times covered roughly half
Excluding Globe’s own production of Henry V, the rest of
the national press published only fifteen reviews in total
of the remaining 37 productions
Chariots of Fire at Hampstead Theatre reviewed by at
least 17 critics; most RSC and Globe productions
reviewed in a dozen newspapers

14. ‘Back to British
business as usual’….
‘After the enticing international extravaganza of Globe to Globe, it’s back to British
business as usual at Bankside’ (Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard)
Dominic Dromgoole had ‘timed to perfection his production of Shakespeare’s
celebration of our country, our way of life and our willingness to defend it’ (Tim
Walker, Sunday Telegraph)
‘The evening acts as a chastening reminder of what a country needs when it’s up
against it. Those rash souls at the Ministry of Defence, pruning the army to within
an inch of its life, would do well to take note’ (Dominic Cavendish, Daily
Telegraph)

16. 15

18. 17

22. World Shakespeare Festival
Archive
• Shakespeare Centre Library
• Trusted Digital Repository
• Paper Archive

23. World Shakespeare Festival
Archive
We need the following programmes:
• The Rest is Noise (dreamthinkspeak)
• Falstaff (ROH)
• Macbeth: Leila and Ben – A Bloody History (LIFT)
• West Side Story (Sage, Gateshead)
• Desdemona (Barbican Centre)
• 2008 Macbeth (Edinburgh Festival)

24. World Shakespeare Festival
Archive
Please send your memories, photos, press-
clippings, and accounts of the WSF to:
library@shakespeare.org.uk
or
The Shakespeare Centre Library, Henley Street,
Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 6XA

26. 2626founding associate partner

27. shksp.re/reviewingap
p

28. 25

29. Questions
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/a-year-of-shakespeare-9781408188149/
Discount code: SBT0513