Such Stuff: The Shakespeare's Globe Podcast

In the last episode in our series on arts and wellbeing, we explore the question of creativity. Creativity has come up again and again in this series, as a way of expressing ourselves, but also as a way of managing the thoughts and the periods in our life which can feel overwhelming. Why is exercising our creative brain such a helpful way of taking ourselves out of negative thought processes? How can all of us – even if we don’t think we’re particularly creative people – use creativity to feel better? We speak to our literary manager Jess Lusk about her relationship to that crucial connection between creativity and mental health. And she chats to actor and writer Steffan Donnelly and our associate artistic director Sean Holmes to get their ideas on why creativity matters, and to hear some of the ways they’ve kept their creativity alive this year, whilst they’ve been unable to work. This episode does contain discussion of mental health issues, anxiety, depression and suicide.

In the latest episode of our series on arts and wellbeing, we catch up with some of the creatives and scholars in our Globe network to find out about the inspirations that have helped them through this period and why the arts provide such a vital lifeline. Without the opportunity to go out and experience the arts in person, we’ve been turning inwards, to books, televisions, films, plays and paintings. How can inspirations help to find escape in difficult periods? Or bring comfort in moments of crisis? We hear from actor and writer Tom Stuart in conversation with our literary manager Jess Lusk. And lecturer and senior researcher Dr Will Tosh speaks to actor, storyteller, writer and Globe Education Practitioner Alex Kanefsky, and Shakespeare scholar Dr Vanessa Lim. This episode does contain discussion of mental health issues.

In the latest episode of our series on arts and wellbeing, we turn to the question of connection. What are the connections that arts spaces can bring and how can that impact our mental health? And for theatre in particular, how important is the moment of connection, the shared experience, that comes from spending an evening with an audience of strangers? We chat to Jemima and Alistair, two of the wonderful Globe volunteers, about why they volunteer, how it impacts them, and why they think connection is so important for wellbeing. Performances at the Globe can only happen thanks to the extraordinary contribution of our eclectic, committed and joyful volunteers. Every season, they watch countless performances and meet so many of the audience members who come through our doors. Who better to speak on the elusive but extraordinary power of connection? This episode does contain discussion of mental health issues and anxiety.

In this second episode in our series on the connection between the arts and wellbeing, we dig a little deeper into expression and vulnerability. Whilst watching or engaging in the arts and creativity can offer an incredible release, the process can also be very exposing. After a year of isolation with limited outward expression, how do we move back into the world and what lessons might we learn from the performing arts and artistic practices in making this transition? Director Sarah Bedi and drama therapist Annemarie Gaillard share their experiences of working in rehearsal rooms, and especially with young actors, to facilitate nourishing creative experiences. We’ll be asking, what are the benefits but also anxieties of being vulnerable? How can we build safe spaces in the performing arts? And how can all of us learn from creative practices to reach out after this period of isolation, to find expression through the arts, whilst also taking proper care of ourselves? This episode does contain discussion of mental health issues and anxiety.

In a new series dedicated to the connection between the arts and wellbeing, we explore the many ways in which the arts enrich our lives. As we head out of lockdown and back into our beautiful theatres, what role can the arts and theatre play in helping us to tackle mental health issues, in restoring wellbeing, and to help us find expression and connection again after a year of isolation? We’ll be speaking to drama therapists, to psychologists, to artists and creatives, to dig deeper into the links between the arts and wellbeing and to think about some of the practical ways that the arts can play a part in a sort of collective healing. First up, in this episode, Artistic Director Michelle Terry speaks to psychotherapist Rachael Williams about how creativity, vulnerability, and engaging with the arts can help us to work through the mental health problems we experience. This episode contains discussion of mental health, anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide.

This month, we’ve been celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month. In this episode, our Head of Learning and former drama teacher Lucy Cuthbertson explores the importance of creating a positive environment in schools for LGBTQ+ students and staff. Lucy speaks to eight former students about their experiences of being LGBTQ+ in school and how important drama was as a safe space to explore. They also discuss why role models in school and representation in the curriculum matter so much. Plus, Lucy chats to Dr Elly Barnes about the work her charity Educate & Celebrate is doing in schools. Lucy and Elly have both been working in educational spaces as educators, as teachers, as activists and as champions of LGBTQ+ rights for years, and together they reflect on how far we’ve come and what else schools can be doing to be LGBTQ+ inclusive.

In our final episode of the year, some of the wonderful Such Stuff team offer up festive readings, poems and stories that bring joy and contemplation at this time of year. We’re calling it out very own Such Stuff Christmas Cracker Bonanza; pull the cracker, and who knows what you’ll find inside? We hear from actor Paul Ready, lecturer and research fellow Dr Will Tosh, multimedia production officer Sophie Wells and artistic director Michelle Terry.

In our second advent episode, we turn to a snowy story from the history of the Globe theatre, our very own Christmas miracle. In the icy winter of 1598, a theatre was dismantled on the north side of the river, the timbers rolled through the snowy streets of London, and the Globe theatre was born on the south side of the river. But what really happened that wintery night between Christmas and New Year in 1598? Was the Globe really built in a day? Our very own historical Scrooge Dr Will Tosh does some all-important myth busting with artistic director and ardent miracle-believer Michelle Terry. The resulting story we uncover might be a little less flamboyant… but maybe, just maybe, it’s no less magical.

With the festive season upon us, we dedicate the first of our advent offerings on Such Stuff to that great theatrical festive tradition... panto! With artists and theatre makers Jenifer Toksvig, Ess Grange, Jude Christian and our artistic director Michelle Terry, we delve into the rich history and contemporary stylings of panto, including our very own festive show, Christmas at the (Snow Globe). So, we’ll be reminiscing about pantos of Christmas past, discussing the joys and pitfalls of tradition and thinking about why this communal form of theatre is so important, in this year of all years. Oh no it isn’t... oh yes it is!

In this episode, we return to the subject of Shakespeare and Fear, unpicking the relationship between our very real fears and anxieties and our obsession with ghost stories, hauntings and imaginary terrors. As part of our digital festival exploring the subject, our 2018 production of Macbeth returns to the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as Macbeth: A Conjuring, a semi-staged reading. So, we revisited interviews with director Rob Hastie and actors Michelle Terry and Paul Ready on conjuring, superstition and catharsis. And we caught up with Dr Will Tosh to discuss the uncanny resonances between today’s fearful state of affairs and the bitter winter in which Shakespeare wrote Macbeth.

In this episode of the podcast, we get into the spirit of the spooky month and take a deep dive into the world of ghost stories, with frights, thrills and things that go bump in the night. As part of our new festival examining Shakespeare and Fear, self-confessed horror fans Michelle Terry and Paul Ready delve into what makes a ghost story scary, why we continue to tell them and what is unique about the ghosts in Shakespeare’s plays.

In the final episode of our series on Shakespeare and Race, we take a closer look at the question that has underpinned the entire series: how do we decolonise the works of Shakespeare? We hear myriad suggestions and ideas from contributors from across the series – actors, academics and students. And we return to festival co-curators Michelle Terry (Artistic Director) and Professor Farah Karim-Cooper (Head of Higher Education and Research) to reflect on the festival and to ask what next for making decolonisation a reality at Shakespeare’s Globe and beyond. This episode also features a special reading from festival co-curator Kobna Holdbrook-Smith of James Baldwin’s Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare.

In the fourth episode in our series on Shakespeare and Race, we turn to the theatre industry to examine how whiteness has dominated – and continues to dominate – our theatres, from the work that we stage to the people who make up our organisations. We spoke to Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Jade Anouka, Adjoa Andoh, Sarah Amankwah and Federay Holmes, who reflected on some of their experiences across the theatre industry, discussed the particular knottiness of Shakespeare and asked what work needs to be done to make theatres and rehearsal rooms actively anti-racist.

In the third episode of our series on Shakespeare and Race, we look at our education system and the way that we’re teaching the next generation. The way we teach and the way we learn shapes the way we understand the world. If that education is permeated with this idea that whiteness is the norm, and everything else is the other, that is what we take out into the world. And when it comes to Shakespeare, it means generations are brought up with a narrow set of ideas about what Shakespeare’s plays mean, who they are for and why they matter. More and more, across schools, universities and drama schools, we are hearing calls to decolonise the curriculum. In this episode, we’ll be exploring what that means and what a decolonised curriculum might look like. And of course, we’ll be asking what that means for the way we learn the works of Shakespeare. We chat to playwright and founder of the Diversity School, Steven Kavuma, about his experiences of drama school education. And we talk to Dr Shona Hunter about how whiteness dominates the educational context.

In the second episode in our series on Shakespeare and Race, we take a closer look at the way that whiteness has dominated the way we read Shakespeare, from the first moment we pick up a Shakespeare play. For too long, ways of looking at Shakespeare have been dominated by a concern with whiteness, but one that goes unacknowledged. For those who study Shakespeare’s work, this has marginalised the voices, concerns and interests of scholars of colour. If we are reading Shakespeare in narrow ways, do we also teach Shakespeare from these same narrow perspectives? And do we pass the same narrow concerns onto another generations of Shakespeare readers and scholars? We speak to Dr Ambereen Dadabhoy and Dr Ruben Espinosa about their work, as well as four students - Hassana Moosa, Wendy Lennon, Nour El Gazzaz and Shani Bans – who are currently studying for PhD’s, to find out how and why whiteness continues to pervade the way we read Shakespeare.

With the theatre closed, we take a moment to ask: when we reopen, should we really go back to business as usual? We don’t just want to pay lip service to Black Lives Matter and then move on without making any real changes to the way we operate as an organisation. It is not enough to stand against racism in theory, we need to be actively anti-racist. This is the first in a series of episodes dedicated to Shakespeare and race, specifically Shakespeare and anti-racism. So, we’ll be asking what if we looked at the world – our own world, the world of theatre and the world of Shakespeare – through whiteness? The way we talk about race is so often couched in ‘otherness’, in putting labels on groups based on difference; but different to what, other to what? In this episode we will be unpicking what that term whiteness means, speaking to sociologist Dr Steve Garner. And over the course of the next few episodes we will look in depth at the way we read Shakespeare, the way we educate students in classrooms, lecture halls and rehearsal rooms and the way we operate our stages through this presumption that whiteness is somehow the norm.

This week on the podcast, we bring you another episode of the Shakespeare diaries. Our very own actor artistic director Michelle Terry and actor Paul Ready discuss Shakespeare’s plays from isolation. This week, they revisited Love’s Labour’s Lost, the first production they were ever in together, and on our very own Globe stage. Prompted by questions from our audience, Michelle and Paul discussed why it’s Michelle’s favourite play, how Shakespeare once again marries joy and melancholy and why it’s such an anarchic play.

This week on the podcast, we return to the Shakespeare diaries. Our very own actor artistic director Michelle Terry and actor Paul Ready discuss Shakespeare’s plays from isolation. This week, they discuss As You Like It. With questions sent in by our audience, Michelle and Paul consider why Rosalind and Celia’s relationship is so central to the play, why audiences seem to love Rosalind so much and why this bonkers play is one of their most beloved!

This week on the podcast, the Shakespeare diaries returns. Our very own actor artistic director Michelle Terry and actor Paul Ready discuss Shakespeare’s plays from isolation. This week, just in time for the summer solstice, they turn to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With questions sent in by our audience, Michelle and Paul consider the epic scope of this play, from climate change and chaos in the cosmos, to the relationship between jealousy and power, and the pervasive idea of capture that spans the play.

This week on the podcast, we take a moment of reflection. As the future of theatre is in question, we take inspiration from the Globe’s past. What does this rich history of reinvention, of imagination and an enduring determination to tell stories mean to us today? And how do we move into the future when theatre may never be the same again? We asked members of the Globe family far and wide to reflect with us, building an audio time capsule of the Globe and what it means to them. This episode celebrates memory: of people, places and things and how in the act of remembrance, we begin to slowly stitch ourselves back together and look to the future with all the promise and hope of rebirth and renewal.