We hope Princess Elizabeth & Frederick V turned up on time for the King’s Men 1613 revival of Othello, performed in celebration of their wedding (we know; not a great wedding play!) If they wanted to attend REP’s reading of the play they’d need to be there at 7pm not 7.30 (it’s a long play).

On Wednesday, the 1612 revival of Henry IV Part Two will follow our last week’s reading of Part One, as the King’s Men find the retiring Shakespeare still looking over their collective shoulders. #ShakespeareSunday

This week we resume our chronological reading of the plays of the King’s Men: Shakespeare is nearly done with writing, but the company is not done with his plays. So we begin with their 1612 revival of Henry IV Part 1 #ShakespeareSunday

The new season of REP play-readings kicks off with 1 Henry IV at 7.30 p.m. on 24 September, and will feature the King’s Men repertory of 1612-14, including The Duchess of Malfi, Valentinian and several Shakespearean revivals. - see the full autumn schedule here: www.readingearlyplays.com

While our playreading sessions are on summer break our playmakers are wrestling with complex questions such as “How do you retrieve the headless corpse of a relative from a heavily guarded Venetian piazza?” The answer, of course, involves sailors, friars, devils and The Cunning Florentines.

“The soliloquies were rather ingeniously achieved by allowing the actor to smoke his pipe silently, while a low voice whispered his thoughts.” - Julius Caesar in modern dress on British television in 1938.

UPDATED: the trailer for our Playmakers’ newest writing project, now with a title reveal! (really not #ShakespeareSunday !)

REP’s Playmakers have a new project: a new source, a new story, a new date, a new set of characters to match with a new set of King’s Men actors; eventually, a new play that looks like an old one.

REP’s Playmakers have a new project: a new source, a new story, a new date, a new set of characters to match with a new set of King’s Men actors; eventually, a new play that looks like an old one.

Tonight in REP: an evening of court masques and other incidental King's Men performances (1609-12) with accompanying music & design coming to you via Zoom.

On British television in July 1939, “Fiat Justitia”, an eclectic anthology of literary scenes on the subject of the law, including Much Ado About Nothing & The Merchant of Venice #Shakespeare

Heminges moonlighting for his friend the Mayor, and working with Thomas Dekker, not a writer he’d had a great deal of contact with via the King’s Men, though they did revive, & perform at court, his and Webster’s Merry Devil of Edmonton in 1612

A very nice reading of the title character in The Lady of Chabry at #Britgrad2025 Thank you @shakescenery.bsky.social

At 6.15pm we read a play - if you’re at the Shakespeare Institute for #Britgrad2025 come & read with us. (* please note: this is not a real Jacobean tragedy, as performed by Shakespeare’s company! We wrote it ourselves, but we do like to think that it’s quite convincing & enjoyable.)

This evening at @britgrad.bsky.social we read a play - if you’re at the Shakespeare Institute for #Britgrad come & read with us. (* please note: this is not a real Jacobean tragedy, performed by Shakespeare’s company! We wrote it ourselves, but we do like to think that it is quite convincing.)

Of interest to #earlymodern folks -- new research shredding light on the insult on Shakespeare as an "upstart crow" www.leeds.ac.uk/main-index/n...

19th June - REP goes to @britgrad.bsky.social 16.15 - Dr Martin Wiggins & Prof Roberta Barker give a plenary lecture on Casting Early Plays. 18.15 - REP’s Playmakers invite conferencers to join them in reading The Lady of Chabry a play newly cast & created for Shakespeare’s King’s Men company.

We have some incredible workshops lined up for BritGrad 2025, starting with Dr Alex Thom who will be speaking on strategies and timelines for the pursuit of funding ✨

Tonight in REP we return to Julius Caesar, for its 1613 revival by The King’s Men.

19th June - REP goes to @britgrad.bsky.social 16.15 - Dr Martin Wiggins & Prof Roberta Barker give a plenary lecture on Casting Early Plays. 18.15 - REP’s Playmakers invite conferencers to join them in reading The Lady of Chabry a play newly cast & created for Shakespeare’s King’s Men company.

When reading The Merry Devil of Edmonton for its 1613 revival by The King’s Men this is surely the question one must ask:

On Wednesday in REP we will read Philaster by Beaumont & Fletcher. - it is subtitled Love Lies a Bleeding, so we will be investigating any signs of adaptation & influence in later, similarly titled, works (possibly).

Tonight in REP we read a slimmed down version of Ben Jonson’s Alchemist (“two short hours” he said) carefully slicing away up to 25% of the play. What could possibly go wrong? #THALCHMST

“two [short] hours” - maybe they meant it when they said it. [prologues by Jonson, (probably) Fletcher & Shakespeare]. - on Wednesday in REP we read a version of Jonson’s Alchemist reduced to something like the running time it claims for itself. #ShakespeareSunday #TwoHourJonson ?

My online modern spelling edition of A Dialogue Between Mercury and an English Soldier (1574) by Barnabe Rich. - containing a visit to the court of Venus, a translation of Bandello’s Lady of Chabry, and Rich’s wholesale pilfering from multiple military manuals. mercurysdialogue.wordpress.com

“Those that come to see Only a show or two … may see away their shilling / Richly in two short hours.” Tonight in REP we resume our chronological readings of the King’s Men repertoire with The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth (aka All Is True) by Shakespeare & Fletcher.

- fascinating research from @matthewsteggle.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

David Garrick’s 1754 version of The Taming of the Shrew performed on British television in 1939:

- ‘Twill be long. - I warrant you, take but the cues* I give you, it shall be brief enough. - the reduction, contrition, cribation & comminution (which is to say cutting) of The Alchemist in preparation for it’s fulmination in next season’s REP revival reading [* in Q “cues” is rendered “QQs”]

“Drink then, and hear a fatal knell, Drink then a purgative of Hell.” Sarah Siddons in Act 5 of The Lady of Chabry (painted on porcelain by Thomas Baxter in 1814, after an original by Joshua Reynolds, as seen at the Museum of Royal Worcester.) //parts of this post may be fictional

An angry Armenian unicorn in George Chapman’s 1603 play Bussy D’Ambois for #NationalUnicornDay (see ALT for a modernised version of the text)

“This England” (Richard II, Act 2 Scene 1): Leslie Howard & The Council For The Preservation Of Rural England on #ShakespeareSunday

REP resumes after Easter with new plays & revivals performed by The King’s Men in 1613, including All is True, Cardenio, The Alchemist, Philaster, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, Julius Caesar & The Winter's Tale (plus we’ll be taking a trip to @britgrad.bsky.social in June).

Thanks to all those who read and responded so positively to the Playmakers’ new/old play The Lady of Chabry. We’re already working through your observations & suggestions to refine our text for a further reading later this year. Below actual footage of our reaction to feedback from Martin Wiggins.

Tonight in REP the full premiere of The Lady of Chabry - a newly written play designed by our Playmakers group for the repertoire of Shakespeare’s King’s Men Company, and adapted to be performed at Court in 1613.

‘The Lady of Chabry’ was written by our Playmaking group in 2024/5, imagining a Jacobean tragedy as performed by Shakespeare’s company in 1612. REP will read the play on 19th March. - definitely not #ShakespeareSunday! - here one of the hired murderers of the Lord of Chabry is making his escape:

Excited to share my new N&Q piece on a previously unidentified cue-script fragment of Mucedorus! Especially satisfying as it’s a play uniquely associated with regional and non-professional playing (and I’m writing a book about it): academic.oup.com/nq/advance-a...

Tonight in REP we shall be slubbering up The Captain by Beaumont & Fletcher

‘The Lady of Chabry’ was written by our Playmaking group in 2024/5, imagining a Jacobean tragedy as performed by Shakespeare’s company in 1612. REP will read the play on 19th March. - definitely not #ShakespeareSunday! - here one of the hired murderers of the Lord of Chabry is making his escape:

19th March: REP will read The Lady of Chabry, a brand new play, written in 2024/5 by our Playmakers group, but designed for Shakespeare’s King’s Men company of the early 1600s, drawing on all we’ve learned about the company, its actors, apprentices, casting practices, dramatic structures & language.

“A sennet is played. Enter the new usurping Tyrant, with the Nobles of his faction ….” Tonight in REP we read The Maiden’s Tragedy by Thomas Middleton, as we continue our chronological journey through the plays of Shakespeare’s King’s Men company.

These mss are GOLD for theatre history. Here we learn that 10 scholars of the Merchant Taylors' school, under their master's instruction, performed the roles of the 9 muses and Apollo from a wagon on Cheapside. The children had rehearsed in the parlour of the MT Hall in front of the Master & Wardens

Very much Martin Wiggins’ modus operandi when introducing the plays for our readings in REP. #ShakespeareSunday

“Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air.” Tonight we read The Tempest, and so … Exit Shakespeare the player.

“But this rough magic I here abjure, and when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do …” On Wednesday 26th February REP reads The Tempest. #ShakespeareSunday

OTD in early British television: A short thread and post to mark the 93rd anniversary of the earliest Shakespeare performance on British television that I can identify. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/otd-in-early...

“But this rough magic I here abjure, and when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do …” On Wednesday 26th February REP reads The Tempest. #ShakespeareSunday

Members: check your email inboxes for exciting news of the Malone Society's spring booksale, and newly available volumes from our back catalogue. Non-members: to receive such exciting missives, join the Malone Society today! malonesociety.com/become-a-mem...

The programme advertises a collaboration between the theatre company and Cunard: seven days on the Queen Mary 2 “putting the power of Shakespeare to sea”. www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/f...

Much Ado About Nothing at Drury Lane with Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell is absolutely brilliant. Fun and clever staging and use of cast make it that rare thing: a genuinely funny Shakespeare comedy. And the electricity between Benedick and Beatrice is enough to light up Europe. Go see it.