In November 2010, I ran a Process week on Shakespeare at the Three Mills Studios with the director Dan Winder, and formed a Company of actors for six days.
Laura Wickham, Natalie Thomas, Diana Kashlan, Jamie Harding, Jaskiranjit Deol, William Sutton, Warren Rusher, David Baynes, Dan Winder and myself worked towards a fresh approach to acting Shakespeare.
Using a combination of solid Folio-based text-work, and physical exercises I’ve adapted from Complicité and the Shakespeare voice coach Cicely Berry, we played and explored for a week…
A documentary team filmed the process, and that footage will be up on this page soon.
Discussing the difference between performing Shakespeare in RP vs OP (Shakespeare’s accent); then performing Sonnet 116 in RP, and OP; and then reading from the opening chapter of Toast, Schwarzengger’s Hamlet…
Posted on July 1, 2010 in: Speaking Dates|Comments Off on FREE TALK, Monday 5th July, 6.30pm
In support of Chalk Farm Library, I’m giving a free talk on the 5th July in the heart of Primrose Hill:
His talks are less of a talk and more of a performance – Ben makes sense of Shakespeare by putting him back into context. It includes an exploration of Elizabethan theatre and what a trip to a Shakespeare play in 1600 would be like, a master-class on the poetry style Shakespeare wrote in, and a look at Original Pronunciation (the accent Shakespeare would have spoken in). It’s relevant for all ages – younger people experiencing the Bard for the first time through to older audience members who love Shakespeare and want to learn something new.
Monday 5th July, 6.30pm
Chalk Farm Library
Sharpleshall Street
London
NW1 8YN
After giving a talk and two workshops to the Year 10 students at Oundle School, I came back to London and headed to Shoreditch.
A team from the Museum of London has found the remains of The Theatre, the playhouse built by James Burbage, and dismantled by his actor-son Richard, Will Shakespeare & their Company, one night in 1599. The materials were used to build the Globe playhouse across the river.
The Tower Theatre Company have begun a fund-raising project to build a new theatre around the site, and protect the remains. They asked me to come and speak a sonnet there yesterday.
I performed Sonnet 116 in OP on the Groundlings Gravel – one of very few actors to have spoken Shakespeare – and the first time that accent has been heard there – in 400 years.
Posted on June 26, 2010 in: Audio/Video|Comments Off on Read/Listen to Toast
About the Book
The video below was made for the Meet The Author website. In it, Ben talks about exactly why Shakespeare on Toast is so different from all the other books on Shakespeare out there…
Excerpt
To whet the buds of those of you out there wanting to know a little more of what Shakespeare on Toast is like, here’s a slice to get your teeth into…
Last year I was invited to speak on a panel on Speaking Shakespeare at the British Shakespeare Association. They asked me to talk about Original Pronunciation – the accent Shakespeare and his band of brothers would have been using some 400 odd years ago.
So please click the link below to hear an excerpt from a Podcast interview that took place after the panel session…
Interview for BBC Radio Wales with Phil Rickman, recorded the week before at the Hay on Wye Winter Weekend and broadcast 7th December, 2008 —Shakespeare on Toast “breaks new ground” says Phil, while I explain just why Shakespeare’s poetry is so interesting and so misunderstood…
Posted on June 14, 2010 in: Speaking Dates|Comments Off on Guildford, Thurs 17th June, 7pm: Shakespeare – Love, Sex & Comedy
Tickets are selling fast for my talk this Thursday evening at Guildford’s Electric Theatre:
Diving through Shakespeare’s writings of love, sex and comedy, Ben Crystal (‘the Jamie Oliver of Shakespeare’ BBC Radio 5), rediscovers the Bard as master dramatist: a true man of the theatre, who had a terrific sense of what makes a captivating play.
The theatres Shakespeare wrote for were two-way, dynamic – a shared experience with the audience, an afternoon’s journey of love, betrayal, death, lust, comedy and, sometimes, the odd song.
The author of Shakespeare on Toast tackles Shakespeare’s attitude to love, sex and comedy, and finds a lot more tragedy than comedy, more betrayal than love, and more mystery than sex..
Discussing the difference between performing Shakespeare in RP vs OP (Shakespeare’s accent); then performing Sonnet 116 in RP, and OP; and then reading from the opening chapter of Toast, Schwarzengger’s Hamlet…
Posted on May 17, 2010 in: Audio/Video, Interviews|Comments Off on OP at Shakespeare’s Globe for OU
Spent a fine morning being filmed running around the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre with Dad: he explaining the origins of the Original Pronunciation experiments, me acting some examples.
Performed excerpts from Henry V, Romeo & Juliet, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and all of Sonnet 116 – which sounds SO different in Shakespeare’s accent – then were interviewed about our work together.
All for an Open University film. Lovely to work with Dad again. Lovely to be back in that terrific space.
Now to Poland to give a series of Shakespeare talks, Ash Cloud permitting… (has it really been capitalised?)
