The Latest Breaking News from Shakespeare

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‘I’m not very interested in trying to work out where Shakespeare’s imagination came from, but it certainly didn’t just come from family life,’ the British thespian said

Actor Ian McKellen performed a Shakespearean monologue on immigration. He linked current events to historical anti-immigrant feelings. McKellen emphasized the humanity of immigrants. Other artists also spoke out against US immigration policies. Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga criticized ICE. McKellen's performance focused attention on immigration struggles.

From Greek tragedy to Emily Brontë, epic romances are part of the human condition – and when imagined as films, we crave them again and again

For Shakespeare’s Hamlet “the world is out of joint”. In screen writer Michael Lesslie’s collage of Shakespeare’s play, directed by Aneil Karia, Riz Ahmed’s intense, grief-wrecked Hamlet pays a high price as he tries to “set it right” in a corrupt corporate world.

Exclusive: John Doyle says theatre should be able to disturb and challenge audiences, and not sanitise difficult themes

Whitney White’s thrilling, song-filled show flips Shakespeare’s great characters and asks why we still lap up these tales of sexy men killing sexy women

Ahmed says he hopes this version of Hamlet is accessible to everyone.

“One must have a heart of stone not to read about the death of little Nell without laughing” was Oscar Wilde’s notorious response to the emotional onslaught of Charles Dickens’s 1841 novel, The Old Curiosity Shop. Having watched two films in two weeks about the death of a child, it…