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    Category Archive: Interviews

    Time Magazine – 20/9/13

    Time Magazine interviewed me last week about Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation. Here’s a link to the piece:

    Ben Crystal – Time Magazine

    The Passion in Practice Workshop last weekend went terrific well. Do head to Passion in Practice Cinematography to see the video footage.

    Interview with Sir Richard Eyre, Hay Festival, May 28th 2011

    While working and speaking at the Hay Festival last week I interviewed Sir Richard Eyre, who ran the Royal National Theatre for ten years, published excerpts of his diaries of his time there in his National Service, and was at the Festival to interview his wife, the producer Sue Birtwistle, on the challenges of adaptation. I grabbed half an hour with him…

    There was a look in his eyes that made me speechless. Not a good way to start an interview, I grant you, but goosebumps shivered up my arms, I put down my pen and forgot about the dictaphone in my bag.

    He stared into the middle distance, watching the scene play out in his memory. “Heart-breaking…”

    Click here to read the rest of the interview…

    London Fringe Radio Live, Weds 16th @7.45pm

    Being interviewed on t’radio tomorrow about Shakespeare on Toast

    Details to be found here…

    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?)

    BBC Blast – Othello Retold

    The workshop as part of Akala’s HipHop Shakespeare Company Othello Retold project with BBC Blast can now be seen on the BBC iPlayer

    And my father, David Crystal, has written a blog-post about it, so touched was he by one of the sequences…

    BBC Radio 3 – Listen to the interview here…

    The interview clip from last week’s The Verb on BBC Radio 3, where I talked in & about Original Pronunciation – Shakespeare’s accent – with Ian McMillan is now up.

    Listen here…!

    Interviews

    There’s been a fair bit of press attention for Toast so I’ve created the following pages to help keep track…

    Reviews can be found here.

    Clips of TV & Radio Interviews can be found here.

    ***Click here to listen to me being interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Midweek, with Libby Purves – recorded 10th June, 2009***

    ***or here for the interview on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, with Ian McMillan – recorded 19th June, 2009***

    Interview with About.com‘s Lee Jamieson

    Ben Crystal is the author of Shakespeare on Toast (published by Icon Books), a new book that dispels the myth that Shakespeare is difficult. Here, he shares his thoughts about performing Shakespeare and reveals his top tips for first-time actors.

    About.com: Is performing Shakespeare difficult?

    Ben Crystal: Well, yes … [Continue Reading Interview…]


    Top Ten Books for The Book Depository.com

    Ben says:

 “I am approaching this from a Desert Island point of view, in that it is an impossible task to bring your favourite books down to a mere 10, much like that terrible equally impossible question, ‘What is your favourite film?’ How can you answer?

    Ben’s Chosen Ten Books Include:

    Neuromancer by William Gibson
    Death and the Penguin
    by Andrey Kurkov
    Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
    Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan…..  [Continue Reading Interview…]

    Ben at the back with, from left, Samantha Cregan, 15, Charlene George, 15 and Shane Dickens, 13

    South London Press

    KIDS at a special school were treated to a visit by an actor and author attempting to serve up Shakespeare on toast.

    Ben Crystal is on a mission to help people of all ages engage and understand one of this country’s writing greats.   [Continue Reading Interview…]

    Ben Crystal by Scott Wishart

    Angel & North Interview

    Sitting outside a café just off Old Street, Ben Crystal is interrupted every 30 seconds or so by a panoply of cars revving, motorbikes speeding and trucks beeping deafeningly as they reverse. Nothing, however, seems able to dispel Ben’s jubilant mood. He has a play, One Minute (at the time of writing taking place at N1’s Courtyard Theatre), on the go that he’s both producing and acting in, and a new book, Shakespeare on Toast, coming out.

    The latter is his first book to be written solo, following the success of two other tomes on the Bard co-written with his father, David. As it turns out, the press night of his play and the publication of the book clash spectacularly, falling on exactly the same day. One must surely be enough, so is he close to breaking point?

    “It’s the most exciting thing in the world!” he exclaims to a surprised interviewer. “It’s all kicking off. Sometimes I feel like this is the day I’ve been working towards for the last ten years.”   [Continue Reading Interview…]

    BBC Radio 3 – tonight!

    I’ll be speaking about Shakespeare’s accent, and giving a few blasts of Original Pronunciation, tonight on BBC Radio 3‘s The Verb, at 9.15pm…

    Guests include the poets Caroline Bird, Laura Dockrill aka Dockers MC, Jen Hadfield and the musician Leafcutter John…

    Tune in if you can…

    Radio…

    Due to unforeseen circumstances, the BBC Radio Somerset interview scheduled for this morning has been cancelled!

    Fear not, though, as the edition of The Verb recorded yesterday will play out tomorrow night on BBC Radio 3, at 9.15pm… Guests include the poets Caroline Bird, Laura Dockrill aka Dockers MC, Jen Hadfield and the musician Leafcutter John…

    Tune in if you can…

    BBC Radio Somerset & BBC Radio 3

    Two radio interviews over the next two days…

    Tomorrow (18th June, 11.05am) I’m catching up with BBC Radio Somerset‘s Elise Rayner, after last week’s wonderful bookshop event at Brendan Books

    And then on 19th June, 9.15pm, I’ll be on BBC Radio 3‘s The Verb, with Ian McMillan, talking in & about the accent Shakespeare spoke in, Original Pronunciation, ahead of next week’s talk at the Globe

    Tune in, if you can…