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”To Be Or Not To Be” – it’s the most famous speech in all of English drama, but what on earth is Hamlet actually talking about?This series, made by BAFTA winner, double Emmy Award winning documentary producer Andrew Smith, features contributions from Adrian Lester, Harriet Walter, Sir Mark Rylance, Samuel West and many more. The first 14 episodes were produced during lockdown to raise awareness for theatres and for actors in a time of pandemic and theatre closures. If you would like to support the podcast, please do ”like” it - or leave a review! Special thanks to Emma Fielding, Simon Paisley Day, Kris Dyer and Paul Sen.
In this episode we consult an online database, HyperHamlet, run by Professor Regula Hohl Trillini, which lists not just the way Hamlet has been endlessly quoted in the last four centuries, but also unpicks the way Shakespeare was in turn using quotes he'd scooped up from the books he'd read - quite possibly at school. We look at the theory of Professor Joel Altman, who suggested that the practice of rhetoric and the recycling of classical quotations, taught to all Elizabethan grammar school students like Shakespeare, led to Hamlet's philosophical despair. We also look at the value of Hamlet's argumentative, questing mind, and how useful it would be in today's struggle against extremism, radicalisation and fake news.
Producer Andrew Smith wonders why the banned erotic novelist Henry Miller hated Hamlet's speech so much that he wrote an entire book about it - one of the oddest books ever written about Shakespeare. This is a strange and murky tale, involving TS Eliot, James Joyce, DH Lawrence, George Orwell, a confused pub crawl, and a constipated drinking partner called Bill Dyker.
The readings of Hamlet's speech are by Emma Fielding
If you like the podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or spread the word on social media. Thank you!!l
Welcome to the first episode of the second series of the podcast, in which producer Andrew Smith relates what he learned while making the podcast, as well as recounting the little known stories and unexpected facts which swirl around Hamlet's famous speech. Why is this speech so famous? Why does it generate such contradictory interpretations and such conflicting responses, ranging from those who love it to those who hate it?
In this episode we hear two contrasting stories; that of Jean Moulin, a French Resistance leader during the Second World War, and Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana - two men leading wildly different lives, who had one thing in common, a close and agonised attention to Hamlet's soliloquy
The episode contains discussions about suicide.
If you like the podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or spread the word on social media. Thank you!!l
The readings of Hamlet's speech are by Emma Fielding
In this episode, American military veteran Stephan Wolfert relates the story of how Hamlet’s soliloquy saved his life when he was at his lowest point. Stephan now runs an organisation which uses Shakespearean monologues to help other veterans cope with their trauma. The episode also features Professor Alisha Ali. The reading is by Emma Fielding
You can find out more about DE-CRUIT here: https://www.decruit.org/
This episode features discussion of suicide.
In this episode, we zero in on just one line in Hamlet's famous soliloquy to investigate how Shakespeare packs complex and multiple meanings into just a few words. We hear how neuroscientists have used the same line to investigate the startling effect which Shakespeare has on our brains.
If you would like to support the podcast, please do "like" it - or leave a review! Thank you!
This episode features Professor Simon Palfrey of Oxford University and Professor Philip Davis of the Centre for Research Into Reading, Literature and Society, Liverpool University. The reading is by Emma Fielding.
The Shakespeare scholars of Ukraine have found themselves on the frontline of a brutal war, and have launched an urgent appeal in conjunction with colleagues around the world. We hear from the scholars whose lives have been swept away by war, and who have bravely volunteered to do everything they can to help. They tell us how the play of Hamlet has been intertwined for centuries with the cause of Ukrainian freedom and independence; and how his famous question has a starkly existential meaning for the future of their country and for every Ukrainian.
To donate to the Shakespeare scholars' appeal, all details are here: https://flutetheatre.co.uk/
Huge thanks to Ukrainian band Balaklava Blues for permission to use their song, Shelter Our Sky, which has been released this week to urge the international community to help Ukraine:
https://www.balaklavablues.ca/
In this special episode of the podcast, we celebrate the return of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre after 14 months of lockdown and cancelled performances. What's it like to act on that famous stage, and what have actors learned after nearly 25 years of innovative theatrical experimentation? With Mark Rylance, Paul Chahidi, Naomi Frederick, Laura Rogers, Dominic Rowan, Emma Pallant, Michael Benz, Jonathan Broadbent and Philip Bird.
For more information on the podcast and how you can help theatres and actors during the COVID crisis:
http://www.fleetingyearfilms.com/podcast.html#
or email Andrew@fleetingyearfilms.com
In this episode of the podcast, we talk to people who have found meaning and a sense of shared experience in Hamlet’s famous soliloquy at the most difficult times of their lives; including dealing with bereavement, traumatic loss and mental health problems. We also talk to Maggie O Farrell, whose recent award-winning novel speculates that the uncanny power of the play may be rooted in the grief of Shakespeare himself, who wrote the play a few years after the death of his own son. With Lucy Clarke, Laura Clarke, Erica Cantley, Maggie O’Farrell, Christie Carson, Dominic Dromgoole and Emma Smith
Laura Clarke's website: https://thebookhabit.co.uk/
Teaching Hamlet As My Father Died, by Erica Cantley: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-HAMLET-My-Father-Died/dp/1945962313/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hamnet-WINNER-WOMENS-PRIZE-FICTION/dp/1472223829/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1618391427&sr=1-1
The speech readings are by Emma Fielding and Simon Paisley Day. For more information on the podcast and how you can help theatres and actors during the COVID crisis:
http://www.fleetingyearfilms.com/podcast.html#
or email Andrew@fleetingyearfilms.com
In this episode, we talk to some of Britain's leading stage actresses - Dame Harriet Walter, Mariah Gale, Sian Brooke, Katie West, Kellie Shirley and Stephanie McGregor - about Ophelia, one of the most iconic roles of the classical stage. We see Ophelia defy corrupt authority and express her own truths, assert her existential freedoms, in the famous so-called madness scene. The beautiful readings of Ophelia are by Emma Pallant, and the TBNTB speech is by Emma Fielding and Simon Paisley Day.
The extract of Mariah Gale is from the Royal Shakespeare Company's filmed version of Hamlet, 2009, directed by Greg Doran and broadcast on the BBC
For more information on the podcast and how you can help theatres and actors during the COVID crisis: http://www.fleetingyearfilms.com/podcast.html#, or email Andrew@fleetingyearfilms.com
What can psychoanalysis tell us about Hamlet’s great speech? And what does it mean for our own divided, self-sabotaging personalities? Why do we often ask ourselves unanswerable questions? And are there any consolations which the search can bring us? With Dr Jamieson Webster, Professor Peter Brooks and Professor Richard Jacobs. The speech readings are by Emma Fielding and Simon Paisley Day.
For more information on the podcast and how you can help theatres and actors during the COVID lockdown crisis: http://www.fleetingyearfilms.com/podcast.html#, or email Andrew@fleetingyearfilms.com
Amanda is a wife. A mother. A blogger. A Christian.
A charming, beautiful, bubbly, young woman who lives life to the fullest.
But Amanda is dying, with a secret she doesn’t want anyone to know.
She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey, and becomes an inspiration, touching and
captivating her local community as well as followers all over the world.
Until one day investigative producer Nancy gets an anonymous tip telling her to look at Amanda’s
blog, setting Nancy on an unimaginable road to uncover Amanda’s secret.
Award winning journalist Charlie Webster explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but
all-too-real tale, of a woman from San Jose, California whose secret ripped a family apart and
left a community in shock.
Scamanda is the true story of a woman whose own words held the key to her secret.
New episodes every Monday.
Follow Scamanda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Amanda’s blog posts are read by actor Kendall Horn.
