Oxford student productions of Shakespeare have a very long history of engaging professionals
Letter: And Ben Jonson was invited for a stint at Christ Church, Oxford, in the late 1610s, writes Daniel Blank
April 2024
Shakespeare played jealous husband in 1598 Ben Jonson drama, scholar’s analysis finds
Exclusive: lecturer finds ‘striking similarities’ between lines in Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour and later Shakespeare works
January 2024
Front row at the wedding from hell: a toast to theatre’s marital ding-dongs
Party punch-ups, brides in disguise, simmering family rancour … playwrights have cordially invited audiences to some nightmarish nuptials
March 2023
Did William Shakespeare invent the word ‘playwright’?
Ben Jonson work from 1603 may contain ‘lost’ Shakespeare sonnet, say experts
August 2022
Shakespeare inspired to write Othello after being booed off stage
The bard learned from his humiliating experiences as an actor at the Globe to hone his playwright skills, academic says
February 2022
Carol Rumens's poem of the week
Poem of the week: An Ode to Himself by Ben Jonson
Jonson’s poetic response to bad reviews of his plays by ‘wolf’ and ‘ass’ praises poetry and urges a return to deeper sources of inspiration
March 2018
Only known edition of annotated Ben Jonson plays saved for the nation
An overseas buyer was prevented from purchasing the 1640 book after the UK government intervened, allowing the University of Edinburgh to buy the ‘extraordinary’ collection
January 2018
Stairway to heaven: celestial secrets of a duke's bed chamber
Revellers at Bolsover Castle in the 17th century could view reassuringly fun-filled visions of the afterlife via their host’s bedroom
December 2017
100 best nonfiction books of all time
The 100 best nonfiction books: No 97 – The First Folio by William Shakespeare (1623)
The first edition of Shakespeare’s plays established the playwright for all time in a trove of some 36 plays with an assembled cast of immortal characters
October 2016
No shame in Shakespeare sharing the wryhting credits
Letters: Wrights, from the Old English ‘wryhta’, roughly equivalent to ‘worker’, were craftsmen, builders or repairers
June 2016
The Alchemist review – Jonson is turned to gold
The Alchemist review – Polly Findlay finds gold in moral anarchy
September 2015
Books blog
Lousy at punctuation? Fear not – so was Wordsworth
Though one of the greatest poets who ever lived struggled with commas, many of us are infuriated by rogue apostrophes and other printed solecisms. How did this come to be?
How Shakespeare’s great escape from the plague changed theatre
In 1606, deaths from the plague led to the closure of theatres. The disease reached the playwright’s house in London, and was to change his professional life, and the whole of drama, for ever
From Oedipus to The History Boys: Michael Billington's 101 greatest plays
In his new book, the Guardian’s theatre critic has selected what he thinks are the 101 greatest plays ever written, in any language – so do you agree?
July 2015
Volpone review – slick and well acted, but too self-consciously modern
Trevor Nunn’s tech-savvy update reduces this vicious comedy to a slight entertainment
November 2013
Anne Barton obituary
Shakespeare scholar whose accuracy of perception brought out the playwright's brilliance and humanity
July 2013
Rereading
Ben Jonson's chair
Ben Jonson begins Twitter travel journal, rather late
