For a Senecan-styled tragedy of inordinate bloodshed, things work out remarkably well for the characters who survive John Marston’s 1602 Antonio’s Revenge...
Category: Essays
Self-harm as spectacle in “Measure for Measure” (Donmar Warehouse, 2018)
Sometimes a play can be so callous, so poorly-judged, so utterly tone-deaf that one isn't sure whether to laugh or cry. On this occasion, however, my mind is rather made up.
Fatherly and Fearsome: the Ghost in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996)
Does Branagh's "Hamlet" offer audiences the most complete and compelling version of the Ghost to be put to film. I think so.
Fashioning Death: Anne Boleyn, James French, and the Last Dying Speech
From Anne Boleyn to a 20th Century murderer from Oklahoma, it seems that last dying speeches are all the fashion...
“I never got that letter”: writing “Curley’s wife”
That lower-case "w" in "Curley's wife" stands for some terrible, terrible things. It would be nice to capitalise it, to give it the appearance of a name, to treat it as a title rather than as an insult. But we can't...
