Michael Billington ranked Shakespeare's plays from worst to best. I'm not going to do that, but here's the real top ten: 10. Love Island 9. Mamma Mia! 8. Tomb Raider 7. The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 6. Knightmare 5. Home Alone 1 and 2 4. King Kong 3. Dragnet 2. Spartacus 1. Donkey Kong Country

Mind slightly blown. Jonathan Glazer, the Oscar winning director of Zone of Interest, used to direct music videos & advert in the 90s. He did the Virtual Insanity one for Jamiroquai and a couple for Radiohead. He also did the famous Guinness surfers ad. Had no idea.

In what (I hope!) will be the first in a series of events taking To the Lighthouse *back* to Skye, Bethan Roberts and I will be leading a workshop in Portree on Tues 5th May, reflecting on how Woolf's novel resonates with sustainability, housing, and tourism today atlasarts.org.uk/programme/to...

Is it breaking strike action for me to complain about the AI guy who doesn't like early modern tragedy?

Just saw the local kingfisher again

We're on strike again! You can read more about why here: www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/d8mewmx... University management not sticking to their word? Who would have thought it? Please spread the word!

Latest issue of @shaxbull.bsky.social is out: muse.jhu.edu/issue/56610 Delighted to join the editorial board of a journal I've long admired. We publish in all areas of Shakespearea performance including early modern & not-Shakespearean stuff so please consider sending us your work & spread the word!

Whoa it is my 12 year vivaversary - also sometimes known as St Patrick's Day

We've been doing Tempest adaptations over the last couple of weeks (Césaire today). The weather has been really bad so I have been able to say 'looks like there's a bit of a tempest outside' in each of my classes.

Sounds like this is similar to what Warwick University attempted in 2015, outsourcing some staff to a subsidiary firm called Teach Higher. That effort was defeated by local opposition. www.ucu.org.uk/article/7541... Hopefully it's not too late for Sheffield Hallam staff to do the same here.

Looking for Tempest adaptation reccommendations. I currently do Césaire and Jarman but don't like the Taymor and would rather dispense with it. Any suggestions?

Anyone know what bird this is? Some kind of heron?

Has anyone written about references to non-title characters on early modern printed book title pages? Most playbook title pages don't refer to characters beyond those that are eponymous but some do (including several now very famous plays) in interesting & sometimes surprising ways.

The UK government is proposing radical and punitive changes to settlement rules. This is settlement, not citizenship. The consultation is open until 12 February; please respond to it and oppose these evil proposals. Amnesty have a good guide: www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/gu...

Is it possible to talk about repetition in a way that doesn't end up prioritizing difference? So much writing about repetition emphasizes that replication is never possible & I agree but...how do we talk about the pleasure of sameness without emphazing how sameness is never quite the same?

Doing proofs and I am pleased with, relieved about, and proud of, the co-authored introduction. It was really good to work with Harry Newman, a long time friend from the PhD days, now one billion years ago by my reckoning.

Do you know the alphabet without thinking about it or do you have to count it out in your head first? For example, do you know without hesitation that R comes before S?

Huh, this is weird

I have two chapters left to write in this book (both on repetition) & this week I thought about them properly for the first time since the Marlowe Society of America in 2024. And when I say properly I mean, I've had a bit of a think this evening and read half an article.

Behold!

Last week my students asked me about whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. It's the first time I can recall it happening in 12+ years of full time university teaching. People who teach Shakespeare, do you find students sometimes bringing it up?

This is really great news, both because it's a wonderful project and because @oldfortunatus.bsky.social is a brilliant advocate for our subject.

Happy new year from Aphra Bear.

Betelgeuse, which is hundreds of times bigger than the Sun is easily visible in the night sky as a little red blot. It is unimaginably massive & one of the biggest things it is possible to see with your own unaided eyes.

Ricky Ponting clearly doesn't like Jofra Archer. Come on now, the guy took 5 for and is now 30 odd not out. He is not the problem here and wasn't really the problem in either of the earlier tests either. I wish there would be more commentators calling out this stuff.

Does anyone have acceaa to and can anyone photograph, the contents page of MUP's Three Renaissance Usury Plays ed. Lloyd Edward Kermode?

Just saw a kingfisher. They are so extraordinary. How do they belong here?

It is grimly funny that the University of Oxford shut down their Future of Humanity institute.

We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it...

Behold! resolve.cambridge.org/core/books/r... out in summer 2026

Wow. This is so interesting. Fascinating to see the number of revivals dropping. We can now also see in figures how the canon of revived classics has been reduced further. Shakespeare accounted for 89% of all classical revivals in 2023!

A book about approaches to/methodologies of the study of historical audiences: is it a thing? Should it be?

Monty Panesar has just cracked a broad smile

An important part of being on strike is walking dogs on a beach.

Don't really use bluesky much & don't have the following I used to have on Twitter and so my inane posts don't get the traction they used to. The one below is actually on an important topic though so would appreciate it if you could amplify.

ON STRIKE AGAIN BECAUSE THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH REFUSES TO RULE OUT COMPULSORY REDUNDANCIES!

Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness I am his highness’s dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Happiness in early modern drama is an interesting topic because it seems to be on the fringes of both tragedy and comedy. The former shows it fleetingly before obliterating it; the latter gestures towards it, sometimes unconvincingly.

I don't understand the semiotics of the game ending mechanism in The Traitors. Red means banish and green means don't banish but red also means continue the game and green means stop the game.

Would love to see a production of Tamburlaine that was just part one. No sequel.

Any chance anyone has a copy of the Malone Society An Alarum for London? And if so could I have a reference checked?

We are going to be going on strike again...

What were the most popular plays in 16/17 century? In no order, a non-exhaustive list: Cambyses, Tamburlaines, Spanish Tragedy, Jew of Malta, Faustus, Mucedorus, 1 Henry IV, Hamlet, Othello, A Game at Chess, a bunch of B&F: Philaster, Maid's Tragedy, Scornful Lady, Cupid's Revenge. Others?

Put tiny kettle on lad, I'm gasping - one of the many great underrated The Thick of It quotes. Add your own below.

For a long time I thought the expression 'why do only fools and horses work?' meant why is it that only fools and horses do/are made to do work? But now I see it means why should one do work, which is after all made only for fools and horses; why should one do the work of horses and fools?

Batter my cod three personed God

Today I taught Edward II, the sequel to Edward I.

I can't be the only one who found Hamnet almost offensively mawkish and trite?

I miss chatting about silly plays