PROGRAMME DETAILS FOR THE 189TH SEASON 2012/2013

TUESDAY 13 November 2012
Professor Stuart Hampton-Reeves

Professor of Research-informed Teaching, University of Central Lancashire

Professor Stuart Hampton-Reeves is the first Professor of Research-informed Teaching. Stuart gained a first class degree in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick in 1992, and stayed at Warwick to take an MA (Distinction) in English Literature in 1993 and a PhD on ‘Henry VI in Performance’ in 1997. He was appointed to the post of Lecturer in English and Drama at the University of Central Lancashire in 1997 to develop UCLan’s first Drama Programme and later launched a degree in English and Theatre Studies and an online PGCert in Contemporary Shakespeare. He later became Principal Lecturer and Subject Leader for English & Drama, and was seconded for two years as a Teaching Fellow in E-learning. In 2007, Stuart became Professor of Research-informed Teaching and established the Centre for Research-informed Teaching.

Stuart’s research interests include Shakespeare in Performance and Undergraduate Research. He was the Performance Editor of the journal Shakespeare and the General Editor (with Bridget Escolme) of Palgrave’s Shakespeare in Practice series. He is also Chair of the British Shakespeare Association and currently chairs the steering group of the British Conference of Undergraduate Research. He is the author of several books on Shakespeare in performance and Shakespeare’s History Plays. Stuart is also a trustee and director of the British Shakespeare Association and the Blackpool Grand Theatre. He regularly gives keynote lectures and workshops on undergraduate research, research-informed teaching and Shakespeare in performance.

Kent’s Best Man - Re-Assessing Shakespeare’s Jack Cade

The fifteenth century rebel Jack Cade has been portrayed as both a political hero and a sadistic monster. Modern approaches to Cade, both in the theatre and in literary criticism, have tended to portray Shakespeare’s Cade very negatively by focusing on how he made the historical Cade less sympathetic as a dramatic character. I want to re-assess how Shakespeare used his sources by exploring how chroniclers such as Edward Hall and John Stowe portrayed the Kentish rebel. I also want to reconsider Cade as a local hero in light of the character’s own dying boast that he is ‘Kent’s Best Man’. My talk will also draw on theatrical history to show how Cade has been performed since the 19th Century and discuss how Shakespeare’sCade continues to be a relevant (and problematic) figure for modern audiences.

Lecture Notes

The 873rd meeting of the Shakespeare Club took place at Mason Croft on Tuesday 13 November 2012. The meeting was chaired by Dr Susan Brock who introduced Professor Stuart Hampton-Reeves, Professor of Research-informed Teaching at the University of Central Lancashire. The subject of his lecture was "Kent's Best Man - Re-assessing Shakespeare's Jack Cade".

Jack Cade's rebellion dominates the second half of Shakespeare's play Henry VI Part 2. In the course of history he has been seen as alternatively freedom fighter and mindless anarchist. His uprising is based on support from his home county of Kent, and in his final speech Jack Cade claims to have been "Kent's best man". The speaker aimed to investigate whether this could be justified.

Stuart Hampton-Reeves demonstrated this change of perception by surveying the history of the character on stage and page. In nineteenth century America a play cast him as a political hero, but productions of Shakespeare's play have usually treated him as an ignorant villain, his scenes knockabout farce. Several members of the club performed an impromptu reading demonstrating how the speeches of Cade's supporters undermine his authority if spoken as "asides" whereas if performed direct to the audience they confirm his status as an unpredictable and dangerous man.

Hampton-Reeves went on to compare Shakespeare's Cade with his portrayal in the sources. The details of Cade's rebellion in 1450 are more violent in the main source, Hall's Chronicles, than in Shakespeare's play. In the Chronicles Jack Cade is Irish, his Kentish origins and death in a garden in Kent, both invented by Shakespeare. Hampton-Reeves speculated about why Kent was so important to Shakespeare, explaining that as a county it retained liberties lost to the rest of England, and was a traditional hotbed of rebellion. The leader of the Peasants' Revolt, Wat Tyler, for instance, was also from Kent.

After a lively question and answer session and a vote of thanks, the meeting closed at 9.05pm

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