‘When last I was at Exeter…’ Richard III in Rougemont Castle Gardens

Richard III reigns in the southwest this summer. Not only will the Renaissance Reading Group be discussing the play next week — Exeter’s Northcott Theatre will be performing Richard III in the grounds of Rougemont Castle, 17 July-9 August. Shakespeare in the wooded moat of the ruined fortress has become an established and well-loved tradition.  This year’s production will be worth attending, if only for the resonant passage in which Richard recalls his visit to the very spot:

                          When last I was at Exeter,
The mayor in courtesy show’d me the castle,
And call’d it Rougemont: at which name I started,
Because a bard of Ireland told me once
I should not live long after I saw Richmond….

The next best thing to seeing Hamlet done at Elsinore.  Cymbeline at Milford Haven.  Or The Merry Wives of Windsor at, um, Windsor….

The production will have its premiere at the Ludlow Festival, before moving on to Rougemont. Curiously enough, Richard III also contains several references to Ludlow, where Edward, Prince of Wales is resident before his fatal transfer to the Tower of London.

‘Towards Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind!’

Renaissance Reading Group looks forward to ‘glorious summer’

The next meeting of the Exeter Renaissance Reading Group will take place on Thursday 26th June, in the Queen’s Building SCR (1-2pm). Following popular demand, the group will be discussing Shakespeare’s Richard III. All are welcome to attend.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer….

Britgrad 2008: Programme

The programme for the British Graduate Shakespeare Conference – aka Britgrad 2008 – is now online. The conference will take place 19-21 June at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-on-Avon.

Speakers at the conference include Briony Frost (Exeter), whose paper is entitled “‘To th’monument’: Shakespeare’s Stage and James I – a player king?”, and Jem Bellamy (Exeter), speaking on “The Printer and the Princess: The First Editions of Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and the Spanish Match.”

 

Tudorism: Historical Imagination and the Appropriation of the Sixteenth Century

An interdisciplinary symposium to be held at the University of Bristol on 5-7 December 2008

Directors

Dr Tatiana String, Department of History of Art, Tel: +44 (0)117 954 6066

Dr Marcus Bull, Department of Historical Studies, Tel.+44 (0)117 928 8879

Objectives

This three-day symposium to be held at the University of Bristol will bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore the ways in which the Tudor period, its monarchs (Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I), its artistic expressions, and its cultural heroes (for example, Holbein, Shakespeare, and Byrd) have been appropriated by later generations. Its focus is thus ‘Tudorism’, which may be defined as the modern reception of the history, literature, art, architecture, design and music of the Tudor age. The modern cultural imagination has often derived a substantial, sometimes even predominant, portion of its ideas and images of the past from the sixteenth century, inspiring architects, artists, designers, musicians and writers. Tudorism is a topic with enormous potential for fertile inter- and cross-disciplinary exchange, and the symposium will be the first forum for the study of this remarkable phenomenon, its express purpose being to set the agenda for future research. The timing of the event anticipates the quincentenary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne in April 1509. There will undoubtedly be numerous types of commemorations of the anniversary across the UK, but this timely symposium will concentrate on the long-term impact of this monarch and his family.