Current Talks
Shakespeare Club members are entitled to attend eight talks a year, usually on the second Tuesday of the month between October and May, at 7.30pm. These friendly occasions are an opportunity to meet others interested in Shakespeare, and to hear academics talk about their latest research, practitioners share their expertise, or performers showcase their talents. Talks are often illustrated by images or video. Speakers are usually delighted to answer questions from their audience. The current programme is below.
2026-2027 season
13th October 2026: Presidential Evening: Alexandra Gilbreath in Conversation with Dr Paul Edmondson.
Alexandra Gilbreath is a celebrated actor and long-standing Associate Artist of the RSC performing in Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter’s Tale, Merry Wives: The Musical and Twelfth Night. As well as her extensive, award-winning stage career she has built a varied screen career in British television dramas and feature films, and balances classical theatre roles with contemporary new writing.
10th November 2026 : Professor Tiffany Stern, Birmingham University, the Shakespeare Institute: Ballad Business: Selling Early Modern Theatre
Tiffany Stern’s research focuses on the theatrical contexts that brought about plays by Shakespeare and others, and documentation relating to the playhouses. Her current projects include a book on exchanges between theatre and popular entertainment, Playing Fair.
8th December 2026: Perry Mills, King Edward’s School. Edward’s Boys, Performance and Community
Perry Mills is well known for founding and running Edward’s Boys, the world-renowned group which for over 20 years has explored the neglected repertoire of plays written for the boys’ companies around the turn of the seventeenth century.
12th January 2027 : Professor Russell Jackson, Birmingham University: (title to be confirmed)
Professor Russell Jackson is Emeritus Professor of Drama and has worked for many years on Shakespeare’s plays and their adaptation into different media, being text adviser to Kenneth Branagh on his Shakespeare films and also working with leading directors on other stage and screen productions.
9th February 2027 : Professor Will Tosh, Shakespeare’s Globe: Straight Acting and William Shakespeare
Will Tosh is Director of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe, and writes about the literature and culture of Shakespeare’s England. His most recent book is Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, which won the Theatre Book Prize in 2025.
9th March 2027 : Professor Andrea Smith University of Suffolk : ‘Go shake your ears’: Adapting Shakespeare for Audio
Andrea Smith is a Lecturer in English and Creative writing. Originally a journalist, her interest in helping young people develop their skills led her into education. Her research focuses on radio drama, specifically Shakespeare. Her book Shakespeare on the Radio: a Century of BBC Plays is the first detailed examination of British radio productions and their evolution, and won a prestigious Outstanding Academic Title Award in 2025.
14th April 2027 : Professor Carol Rutter, Warwick University: Lying Abroad: Henry Wotton and the Invention of Diplomacy
Carol Rutter is Emerita Professor of Shakespeare and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. Her book Lying Abroad examines the extraordinary life of Henry Wotton, student, traveller, secretary, scoundrel and spy, who arrived in Venice in 1604 as England’s Ambassador, and whose diplomacy saved Europe from war.
11th May 2027: Professor Lucy Munro, Kings College London: Shakespeare’s Playhouses
Lucy Munro has a special interest in the playhouses of early modern London and is currently working on a new history of the Globe and Blackfriars Playhouses, investigating the lives of men and women who constructed, used and made profits from them. Earlier in 2026 she made the news when she discovered the exact location and even the floorplan of Shakespeare’s only London property in Blackfriars which he bought in 1613.
8th June 2027: Rebecca Halliwell, Lancaster University
A special meeting to celebrate Rebecca Halliwell, the recipient of the Shakespeare Club Bursary Award in 2025. Her talk will focus on her PhD research into ‘Creating Bibliotherapeutic Encounters with Shakespearean Comedy’ which examined RSC productions of As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale and Twelfth Night.
