Julius Caesar

Sorry about the extreme delay, both Jeff and I are working and going to school now, so we don't have as much time for podcasting and editing as we'd like. Also, I was sick for about a month and a half.

The episode is available Here.

Hark! A Vagrant has fantastic comics about Julius Caesar Here and Here.

A review of The Shakespeare Wars is available Here.

"Anonymous"

Anonymous has come and gone, so now is probably the best time to release a belated counterpoint podcast

To sum up, it's bad writing and bad history.

The next episode is Antony and Cleopatra, vote for what you want to see after that!

EDIT/CORRECTION:
Our next episode is going to be about Julius Caesar, partially because it's before A&C, but mostly because it's going to be playing later this month, and we want fresh memories.

Villains

This month's episode is Villains, and here it is!

Trying to figure out some way to continue hosting old episodes, sorry if you accidentally re-downloaded the first episode on iTunes.

Our next episode is Henry V.

Episode Outline after the break.

Othello

I said we'd have the podcast out by the end of the month, and here it is, with an hour and 45 minutes to go. We'll have a vote about the content of the next episode.




Store:
Othello With Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh
Othello With Laurence Olivier

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona isn't going to win any awards, but it's a fun play. We used an entirely new format for this episode, focusing on character instead of doing a scene by scene analysis. Let us know what you think!

Next Episode: The First Folio

Episode outline after the break:

Shakespeare's Sources

Episode 20! Hooray!

This one is about Shakespeare's Sources, although that doesn't take us too long, so the second half is about news that's cropped up lately.

There's a special moment of action at the end, where we roll a die to randomly decide what play to do next. I'm not going to spoil it here.

Links
Lists of Shakespeare's Sources
http://www.shakespeare-w.com/english/shakespeare/source.html
http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/sources.htm  
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sources/ 

Links to Shakespeare's Individual Sources
Holinshed's Chronicles

Although we mention the Geneva Bible as one of Shakespeare's sources, we didn't really give it the proper historical context as one of the most significant Bibles in English history. This Wikipedia article does it proper justice.

Ovid's Metamorphoses

When it comes to the Authorship question, newly brought to attention by this Anonymous film, we suggest you visit shakespeareauthorship.com, and more specifically, this page of the website, which disembowels their absurd methodology.

Store
Enter the Whole Army: A Pictorial Study of Shakespearean Staging, 1576-1616

This book is the most concise and well written analysis of what makes Shakespeare's plays. You can find it at various online stores if you're willing to look around. I highly suggest it.
The New Temple Shakespeare: William Shakespeare a Commentary
Author: Ridley M. R.
Publisher: J.M. Dent & Sons
1936

Outline after the break:

Macbeth

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, and this is our longest episode.

We were happy to talk about the Astor Place Riots, you can see more stuff about it on Wikipedia Here.

It would be easy for us to provide the outlines that we use to produce these podcasts, would you guys be interested in seeing those? Please leave us a comment if you'd like to see them.

Store
Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection I can't recommend this show enough: it encompasses the "feeling" and "meaning" of Shakespeare more than any program I've ever seen.
Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection Akira Kurosawa's Japanese version of Macbeth
Scotland, PA: A humorous modern retelling of Macbeth in a modern restaurant setting. Includes Christopher Walken!
Wyrd Sisters The amazing Terry Pratchett takes on Macbeth in a Fantasy setting. Fantastic, like all Terry Pratchett.
Enter Three Witches This is an OK book. I'd only recommend it if you wanted a young teen or tween to read a more PG 13 version of Macbeth.

Macbeth: The DVD Edition (Folger Shakespeare Library) A fan suggested this one. I haven't seen it, but it sounds good!


Someone asked for the outline of the podcast, so here it is: (Beware: it's a little long)

Falstaff

Last time, I said that Falstaff should feel better because we made a whole episode about him. Since we spend most of this episode mocking him, maybe not.

Like we say in the episode, if you are a fan, please leave us a comment. We have no idea who you are otherwise!

Episode outline after the break:

Henry IV, Part II

We kind of rag on Falstaff in this one, but the next episode is exclusively about him, so I hope he doesn't mind too much.

PS. (The new host we were trying seems to be broken. I'm working on a solution now.)
PPS. (I've re-hosted it. I hope it works this time!)

Shakespeare In Fiction

It's been a while, but we finally have a new episode. This one's about Shakespeare as a fictional character. Our next episode will be about Henry IV, Part II.

Links:

Tim Curry As Shakespeare
A Youtube video, poor in quality both as a youtube video and as a show. Not for the feint of heart!

Shakespeare in Love (Miramax Collector's Series)
The definitive fictional Shakespeare, and a genuinely good movie

A Mystery of Errors
The first of the Shakespeare and Smythe mystery novels

The Shakespeare Stealer Series
Popular children's series

Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age
Fantasy styled Shakespeare adventure.

Ruled Britannia
An Alternate history where Shakespeare writes a play to incite rebellion against the Spanish occupation of England.

If Shakespeare was born 400 years later:
A comic about Shakespeare using the wretched format of Powerpoint to express the ideas in Hamlet.

The Black Adder Remastered
This link goes to the first season of Black Adder, but they're all good.

Henry IV, Part I

This was a lighthearted episode, appropriate since it introduces the jolly Falstaff to the podcast. Our next episode is going to be about Shakespeare as a fictional character à la the film Shakespeare In Love.

If you would like to see the Welles film Chimes at Midnight, it is available on YouTube Here. I know YouTube is less than ideal, but there are legal issues that prevent it from being released for sale.

We also endorse this film of Henry IV. I couldn't find it on Amazon, so I am providing the link through NetFlix.

Listener Sarah was cool enough to nominate us for a podcast award, you can see the other nominees and vote for us Here.

Shakespeare In The News:
This came out after we finished recording, so I'm just including the link here: This episode of NPR's Talk Of The Nation includes a segment about bringing Shakespeare to other settings and time periods.

Store:
This is the new version of Bryson's Shakespeare: The World As Stage I mentioned in this episode
Shakespeare (The Illustrated and Updated Edition)

Shakespeare's England

This episode was a labour of labour. We had to record it twice, and it required a lot of research. Please enjoy!

The news story about Edward III being attributed to Shakespeare can be found Here.

The BardTube YouTube channel is Here.

Our next episode is Henry IV, Part I.

Store
Shakespeare's England: Life in Elizabethan & Jacobean Times

For those of you interested in reading more about the Spanish Armada, this is a great introduction to every step of the conflict, from beginning to end.
The Armada

Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a great play, and we were happy to do an episode about it, at a fan's request. Some good outtakes at the end of this one, too.

There's some interesting news about the attribution of Edward III in the Shakespeare canon, but it broke just as we finished the episode. We'll cover it next time.

We'd be really pleased if a listener would request the subject of the next episode as well. In fact, any sort of comment really brightens our day.


Store:
The Merchant of Venice (Folger Shakespeare Library)
William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (Starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons)

The Comedy Of Errors

It's been a while, we know, but we did it again. This time, it's The Comedy Of Errors. We disagreed on how good the play was this time. (It's pretty funny).

Nicholas Cage: Americans shouldn't do Shakespeare

Store:
The Comedy of Errors (Folger Shakespeare Library)

How Shakespeare Got To Us

It's our tenth episode! I honestly didn't think we'd make it this far, but we're doing great! We have more listeners everyday, and they're from all over the world. This episode, about how Shakespeare got to us, is less than half an hour, but it's good.

You can read the First Folio through this link for HTML, and this page has scans, but I warn you, it is tough reading with few of the helpful details that get us through Shakespeare today, like naming characters, and modern English.

As always, there are some books you can purchase through amazon,

The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World

Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection

Richard II

Our latest episode is about Richard II. You can get it here.

Here's a video of Richard II made by the BBC.

Store:

Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection

Since recording the Podcast, I've seen all of Slings and Arrows, and it's fantastic. If you don't want to buy it, you should go to the library, or do whatever is necessary to see it. Highly recommended.

Shakespeare's Style

This is a short episode, we mainly did it so we could cover some ideas that we hadn't talked about previously. I hope you like hearing about Iambic Pentameter!


Links to what we talked about today:
Performance of Hamlet with 4 Hamlets
A collection of words possibly invented by Shakespeare
Metal Shakespeare
Zombie Hamlet

The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups This Review is pretty good

Titus Andronicus

Today it's Titus Andronicus.

We had a lot of technical issues with recording this one, so there may be some audio problems; to be honest, you're lucky we got this out at all. I guess we should have said we were making all these mistakes on purpose, so as to be true to the play.

Here is the so-called "Peacham drawing", we see what is probably, from the left, two soldiers, Saturninus, Tamora, two of Titus' sons, and Aaron.

If you do some examination, you'll find that this can't be a single scene from Shakespeare, and must, therefore, be a combination of characters from different characters and scenes.

Like we mentioned in the podcast, now you can go to Amazon through this site. If you buy the stuff we link to, we will get a percentage of the sale. It'd be a help to us, but don't feel like you have to.
Titus, Starring Anthony Hopkins
Romeo x Juliet: Romeo Collection, Part 1. Here's a review on The Escapist
Titus Andronicus (Oxford World's Classics)

Episode 6: Shakespeare's Life

Here's an informational episode: Shakespeare's life. A little shorter than a usual episode.

Check it out Here.

Shownotes:
Horace Howard Furness' Annotated Shakespeare on Google Books
Midsummer as performed by children on YouTube
Photos of a fan's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with authentic Athenian costumes!
New DVD about Playing Shakespeare: an NPR article

Shakespeare's Coat of Arms, courtesy of Wikipedia

Episode 5: The Tempest

We had some technical issues with recording this one, but we managed to salvage an episode out of it. You can listen to it Here.

As promised, we have pictures of the performance we went to, and links to sources you can look at.

The Genre Issue
Three_Unities
Wikipedia on The Tempest
The book that has the sheet music. It starts on page 20.



We had a great time with the Cromulent Shakespeare Company, if you have the chance to see them, please go. They're free, but do give them a little money; even Shakespeare needs to get paid.