Talks & signings this coming month in Warwick, Witney, Plymouth & Paris…
November
3rd, 7pm — Warwick Books, Lord Leycesters Hospital
9th — Cokethorpe School, Witney
16th, 12.30pm – Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
27th, 6pm — Book signing, Shakespeare & Co, Paris
28th, 12.15pm — Closing Plenary, TESOL Paris
29th, 4.30pm — Book signing, The Red Wheelbarrow Bookshop, Paris — Ben Crystal at The Red Wheelbarrow Bookshop
A short break in August, a spell of server crashes & a working trip to New York in September have kept me away from the site, but to keep you updated…
NEW BOOK
Sorry, I’m British! co-written with Adam Russ, with illustrations by the legendary Ed McLachlan has just been published by Oneworld… the perfect Christmas gift book, some might say…
UPCOMING SHAKESPEARE TALKS
October
10th, 7.30pm — Lichfield Festival
11th, 1.30pm — Cheltenham Literature Festival
13th — Glebelands School, Surrey
14th, 7pm — Wells Literature Festival
November
3rd, 7pm — Warwick Books, Lord Leycesters Hospital
9th — Cokethorpe School, Witney
16th – Lunchtime Talk, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
28th, 12.15pm — Closing Plenary, TESOL Paris
From the series of talks I gave Macmillan Poland in May 2010…
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…
A tremendous 15 or so days in Styria, Austria, playing Edgar in King Lear, in the courtyard of a Medieval castle. Pictures have been posted on Twitter & Facebook, and will be up here on the Gallery soon…
A few days after coming back to London, I gave a talk to a group with The Readers Organisation, dedicated to helping bring literature to disadvantaged and homeless members of society. They were off to see The Comedy of Errors at the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, and I spoke with the group for an hour or so, introducing them to the play and Shakespeare in general. A kind bit of feedback, from one of the play-goers:
She was telling several people after the group today how much she had enjoyed the day. She especially loved the session with Ben and told us how she had been very nervous about going to a Shakespeare play and had been thinking it was a mistake to go. She said his easy forthright way of talking was very comfortable and his advice to not worry about the words and just enjoy it was fantastic and put her very much at ease. She said she phoned her father and told him she had been to a Shakespeare play and asked him if he was proud of her….Her excitement was palpable.
Now to the wonderful folk at The Swanwick Writer’s Summer School for the second year, to give their last night, after-dinner talk…
To Austria, to play Edgar in King Lear in a castle for a couple of weeks…!
I’ll post updates and photos from rehearsals and the show on my Twitter account…
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
A very special day yesterday:
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.
A breathtaking moment. I’m a very lucky fellow.
Please head to the The Theatre’s website, and support the project.
The Theatre, Shoreditch
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…
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…
Click on the book to read the excerpt…
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…
Click here to listen to the interview
Worked up an appetite? Fancy a little more? Buy the book from Amazon or The Book Depository…
Lovely day at JFS’ Reading Festival on Tuesday, speaking to their Year 10s.
Back there today, to speak to their Year 12 & 13s.
If you’d like me to come to speak at your school, do get in touch…
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..
Come one, come all! Booking and further details can be found here…
