Past Talks
2025-2026 season
12 May 2026. Professor Alison Shell, University College London. Shakespeare and the English Counter-Reformation: King Lear’s Spiritual Directions.
7 April 2026. Dr Manuela Perteghella, Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Stratford-upon-Avon and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Shakespeare, From Globe to Government: Shakespeare in Translation and in Parliament.
10 March 2026. Dr Elizabeth Hardy. Ellen Terry’s Performances in Shakespeare during her twenty-year partnership with Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre in London.
10 February 2026. Dr Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster: The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit & the Death of the Tudor Dynasty.
13 January 2026. Rob Eastaway, Director of Maths Inspiration. Much Ado About Numbers: Shakespeare’s Mathematical Life and Times.
8 December 2025 . Christopher Saul. Exit Pursued By a Bard: A jobbing actor’s meandering journey through a landscape of Shakespearean productions over the last 60 years. Devised and Presented by Christopher Saul.
11 November 2025. Dr Abigail Rokison-Woodall, The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. Stratford’s Round House (including a short film)
14 October 2025. Rev Dr Paul Edmondson, Local Studies Specialist, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Honorary Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon, and I. Presidential Evening.
2024-2025 season
13 May 2025. Professor Gary Watt: School of Law, Warwick University
Shakespeare and the Law.
8 April 2025 Dr Darren Freebury-Jones, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers.
11 March 2025. Nikki Pearson: University of Birmingham Postgraduate Researcher
Suffragettes, Stratford and Shakespeare
.
11 February 2025. Dr Toria Johnson, University of Birmingham, Associate Professor in Early Modern Literature. What – or Where- Is Macbeth’s Scotland?
14 January 2025. Dr Callan Davies, University of Southampton, Lecturer in 17th-century Literature and Culture. Shakespeare and Co. at the Curtain Playhouse.
10 December 2024. Dr Neal Hall, medical-surgical eye physician and poet. The Trembling Tiber, a black poet’s musings on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
12 November 2024. Tamara Harvey, RSC Co-Artistic Director, previously Artistic Director of Theatr Clwyd. Future RSC.
8 October 2024. Sir Gregory Doran, formerly Artistic Director of the RSC. In conversation with Professor Emma Smith, Shakespeare Club President 2023/24. Presidential Evening.
2023-2024 season
14 May 2024. Dr Kathryn Harkup. Death by Shakespeare: snakebites, stabbings and broken hearts.
13 April 2024. The Shakespeare Club’s 200th Anniversary. Held at the Town Hall, Stratford-upon-Avon.
12 March 2024. Nick Birch. Stratford upon Avon’s Great Little Lady. The life, literature and Legacy of Marie Corelli.
12 Feb 2024. Dr Paul Prescott. The Life, Adventures and Opinions of Sam Wanamaker: an update.
9 January 2024. Dr Jen Waghorn. The Background Musician characters in Shakespeare’s Plays.
12 December 2023. Sir Stanley Wells in conversation with Rev Dr Paul Edmondson. “What was Shakespeare really like?”
14 November 2023. Professor Emma Smith. Shakespeare’s First Folio: the first 400 years. Presidential Evening.
10 October 2023. Rev Dr Paul Edmondson. The great Variety of Readers: 400 years of the First Folio.
2022-2023 season
9 May 2023. Karin Thomson, writer and dramaturg, former Librarian of the Shakespeare Institute. Talking Archives: The Theatre Archive Film Project.
11 April 2023. Dr Harry McCarthy, Junior Research Fellow in English at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. Boying Greatness on Shakespeare's Stage. Live and virtual.
14 March 2023. Rupert Harris, PACR Accredited Conservator-Restorer, member of the Institute of Conservation and Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. The restoration of the statue of Shakespeare on the Town Hall, given to the town in 1769. Joint meeting with the Stratford Society.
14 February 2023. Roger Pringle, former Director of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Thomas Hardy’s visit to Stratford-upon-Avon in 1896 and its on-going influence on him.
10 January 2023. Dr Ella Hawkins, University of Birmingham. Why stage Shakespeare in Elizabethan costume? Live and virtual
29 November 2022. Dame Harriet Walter in Conversation with Professor Carol Rutter, University of Warwick. Presidential Evening.
8 November 2022. Dr Jami Rogers, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Warwick. Integrating Shakespeare, British Black and Asian Shakespeareans in Britain Since 1930
18 October 2022. Professor Ewan Fernie, University of Birmingham. Everything to Everybody’.
2021-2022 Season
12 May 2022. Andy Jaggard and members of the Jaggard family. The Jaggard Story: the life and times of a Stratford bookshop.
21 April 2022. Professor Lena Orlin. Testing the evidence in Shakespeare Biography. Presidential Evening. Live and Virtual
12 April 2022. Tim Cooke, CEO of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. The Revolution of the Times. Virtual
12 March 2022 The Club’s reading of All’s Well That Ends Well as part of Shakespeare’s Coming Home! took the place of the regular meeting.
8 February 2022. Dr Darren Freebury-Jones. Thomas Kyd: Shakespeare’s Tutor. Virtual
14 December 2021. Dr Kirsten Tambling. Wives and Widows: Herne’s Oak, Anne Page and the British Royal Family. Virtual
9 November 2021. Sarah Ellis, Director of Digital Development, RSC. Technology and the Future of Theatre. Virtual
12 October 2021. Dr Sarah Dustagheer, University of Kent. “Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety”. Shakespeare and London. Virtual
2020-2021 Season
11 May 2021. Professor Carol Rutter, University of Warwick. “Not know me yet?” Cleopatra and the politics of performance. Virtual
13 April 2021. Shakespeare Club members shared their memories of the Birthday Celebrations. Included a video of wreath-laying at Holy Trinity Church. Virtual
9 March 2021 Dr Miranda Kaufmann Black Tudors. Virtual
9 February 2021. Dr Anjna Chouhan. King John and the Victorians. Virtual
12 January 2021. Professor Tiffany Stern. Shakespeare, Lavatories and Loo Paper. Virtual
8 December 2020. A discussion between Sir Stanley Wells and Rev Dr Paul Edmondson, including questions from Club members. Presidential Evening. Virtual
10 November 2020. Dr Patricia Lennox. Shakespeare and Costume. Virtual
13 October 2020. Dr Rebekah Owens. Frederick Samuel Boas, a University -Extension Shakespearian. Virtual
2019-2020 season
10 March 2020. Viv Thomas. Shakespeare’s soliloquies and narrations. This was the last meeting before lockdown. Virtual meetings began in October 2020
11 February 2020. Catriona Fallow. Rewriting Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company
8 October 2019. Bill Barclay, Director of Music, Shakespeare’s Globe. Historically informed experience.
14 January 2020. Sam Dastor. “Two loves I have of comfort and despair”. A reading and discussion of a selection of sonnets.
10 December 2019. Dr Chris Laoutaris. Shakespeare and the Countess.
12 November 2019. Sir Nicholas Hytner, former Artistic Director of the National Theatre. “We must leave the killing out”. Presidential evening,
8 October 2019.. Bill Barclay: Historically informed experience.
2017-2018 season
8 May 2018. Glyn Jones. Plans for the five gardens associated with parts of Shakespeare’s life.
10 April 2018. Nigel Wood. Shakespeare and the Digital Revolution: text and performance possibilities.
13 March 2018. Paul Edmondson and Ewan Fernie. New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity.
13 February 2018. Robert Lister. An Actor’s Life for Me. Meeting
9 January 2018. Philip Breen. Shakespeare is difficult, but then again so is life (largely so)
12 December 2017 Mark Carey. Into the Breach (one man show).
14 November 2017. Michael Wood. Shakespeare’s Memory: Presidential Evening.
11 October 2017. Gary Watt. Sound Rhetoric from Caesar to Theresa.
2018-2019 season
14 May 2019. Dr Paul Prescott. Shakespeare in Yosemite.
9 April 2019. Professor Russell Jackson. Trevor Nunn, Shakespeare and the RSC.
12 March 2019. Professor Tony Howard, University of Warwick. Paul Robeson’s Othello, 1930-1959.
12 February 2019. Professor Miriam Gilbert. Henry V. Hero-King or Scourge-of-God?
8 January 2019. Dr Jem Bloomfield, University of Nottingham. Motive and Malignity. Shakespeare and the Golden Age Detective Novel.
11 December 2018. Emma Rice, Director. The trouble with Shakespeare. Presidential Evening.
13 November 2018. David Howe. Shakespeare and Comedy: are his themes still topical?
9 October 2018. David Fallow. The exhumation of rotted corpses.
2016-2017 season
9 May 2017. Dr. Stephen Purcell. “Troilus and Cressida in Performance: A History of Radical Experiment.”
11 April 2017. Tim Raistrick. “’A right goodly Chapel’: Stratford-upon-Avon’s Guild Chapel, its Mediaeval Wall Paintings and the Shakespeare Connection.”
14 March 2017. Chris Hill, Director of Sales and Marketing, The Royal Shakespeare Theatre. “Selling Shakespeare.”
14 February 2017. Dr. Will Tosh. “Playing Indoors: Staging Early Modern Drama in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.”
10 January 2017. Sir Richard Eyre CBE, Former Artistic Director of the National Theatre. “Shakespeareana.” Presidential Evening.
13 December 2016. Alan Smith. Head of the RSC Armoury. The RSC Armoury and Shakespeare.
8 November 2016. Professor Philip Smallwood. “Two Comprehensive Minds: Samuel Johnson and William Shakespeare.”.
11 October 2016. Dr Susan Brock and Sylvia Morris. “‘Long life to the club call’d Shakspearean: The Story of the Shakespeare Club of Stratford-upon-Avon, 1824-2016.”
2015-2016 season
12 April 2016. Councillor Tony Jefferson, Chair of the Shakespeare Celebrations Development panel. Plans for the 2016 Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations.
8 March 2016. Peter Kyle, Chairman, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. In conversation with Stanley Wells, Presidential Evening.
9 February 2016. Dr David Fallow. Shakespeare & Sons: the life and business dealings of John Shakespeare and his sons.
12 January 2016. Will Sharpe. Shakespeare, Collaboration and Dramatic Authorship: the case of Sir Thomas More.
8 December 2015. Roger Pringle, former Director of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Americans, Shakespeare and Stratford.
10 November 2015 Joan Foley. Teaching Shakespeare in Schools. Why do we have to do him when he’s dead?
13 October 2015. Julian Bowsher, Musuem of London Archaeology. Shakespeare’s London Theatreland.
8 September 2015. Professor David Roberts. Shakespeare and jewellery.
2014-2015 season
14 April 2015. Extraordinary General Meeting of the Club.
10 March 2015. Dr Sophie Duncan. Shakespeare and the Suffragettes.
10 February 2015. Professor Eugene Giddens. Amicability in Jonson and Shakespeare.
13 January 2015. Dr Tiffany Stern. O Bitter, black and Tragical: Tragic performance on the Shakespeare Stage.
9 December 2014. Professor Carol Rutter, University of Warwick. Hear the Ambassadors: Henry Wotton in Venice.
11 November 2014. Jeremy Irons. An Actor’s Life for me. Presidential evening
7 October 2014. Nicholas Fogg. Get thee glass eyes: a view of Shakespeare and Politics
9 September 2014. John Wyver. From Stage to Screen: Producing the Royal Shakespeare Company Live from Stratford.
2013-2014 season
8 April 2014. A performance by Jen Stone, Rich Bunn and Martin Thomms of Shakespeare Aloud!, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s troupe of professional actors.
11 March 2014. Professor David Schalkwyk. "Shakespeare's Sonnets: Shakespeare's Voice"
11 February 2014. Dr Erin Sullivan, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. Beyond Melancholy: Sadness and Selfhood in Renaissance England'.
14 January 2014. Erica Whyman. Deputy Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company. ‘Shakespeare and his Spirit of Radical Mischief’.
10 December 2013. Dr Emily Oliver, King’s College, London. Shakespeare under Socialism.
12 November 2013. Professor Michael Dobson, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. Shakespeare and Asia, 1692 and 2013. Presidential Evening.
8 October 2013. Professor Daniel Rosenthal. ‘Great Story, Shame about the Language: Shakespeare Genre Adaptations on Screen’.
10 September 2013. Dr Paul Prescott. The Life, Adventures and Opinions of Sam Wanamaker
2012-2013 season
9 April 2013. Ted Watson, Royal Shakespeare Company. Music in Shakespeare.
12 March 2013. Dr Tara Hamling. Shakespeare at Home: Interior Decoration, Status and Identity in Provincial England c1560-c1640.
2 February 2013. Roger Pringle, former Director of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Shakespeare’s Early Reputation: What did they think of him then?
15 January 2013. Karin Brown. What a Performance! The Interpretation of Theatrical Evidence.
11 December 2012. Michael Attenborough, CBE, Theatre Director, Shakespeare: My Personal View of the Man and his Work. Presidential Evening.
13 November 2012. Professor Stuart Hampton-Reeves. Kent’s Best Man: Reassessing Shakespeare’s Jack Cade
9 October 2012. Patrick Spottiswoode, Director, Globe Education. Why Didn’t Shakespeare Give me More Rhymes: rhyming couplets: Did Shakespeare have an end in mind?
11 September 2012. Dr Nick Walton, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Shakespeare Societies: Putting a Girdle Round the Earth.
2011-2012 season
17 April 2012. Paul Lewis, Art Historian. The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery.
13 March 2012. Peter Jolly, Director of Drama, Dulwich College. Edward Allen and Shakespeare. Comparing the Evidences.
14 February 2012 Dr Robert Bearman. Murder, riot and “gaming at tables”. New light on Shakespeare’s Stratford.
10 January 2012. Professor Claire Cochrane. Shakespeare in Modern Times: Birmingham Rep and the Shock of the New.
13 December 2011. Professor Stanley Wells. Shakespeare and I. Presidential Evening.
8 November 2011. Rev Dr Paul Edmondson, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Muse of Fire? Shakespeare and the Bible.
18 October 2011. Dr Ewan Fernie, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. King Lear and the Positivity of Possession.
13 September 2011. Dr Peter Kirwan, University of Nottingham. Chasing Windmills: Where next for Cardenio?
