That Shakespeare Life

As you will know from listening to THat Shakespeare Life, there's a ruch history behind every small object from the life of William Shakespeare Whether it's clocks, clothes, pencils, or tablets, we love using the...

Immortalised as Elsinore in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet , Kronborg Castle is one of the most important Renaissance castles in Northern Europe. A real castle, and historical stronghold that sits in the town of...

Shakespeare's plays and poems are filled with birds—from familiar crows, swans, and sparrows to species that would have seemed rare, exotic, or unusual in Renaissance England. But these birds are more than decorative...

Shakespeare mentions cats over 30 times in his plays, including to talk about a gib cat, a musk-cat, cats chasing mice and even making perfume. It's obvious that cats were present for Shakespeare's lifetime, but what do...

Shakespeare mentions "housewife" in his works 14 times, including to identify both a "good housewife" as well as a "false housewife." These descriptions appear alongside one accusation that a woman was being someone's...

" Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the sixteenth-century English countryside. Sounds of ploughs rattle in distant fields, and the delightful squeals of children at play fill the air. It is quiet, you think...

Hamlet wagers 6 Barbary horses against 6 French swords. Falstaff talks about fighting with a Barbary hen. Bassanio in Merchant of Venice talks about travelling merchants going to foreign lands including "Tripolis...

In Stratford Upon Avon, where William Shakespeare was born, there is a house that was built in 1530, while King Henry VIII was ruling England. This house was there when Shakespeare was living in the town, and the owners...

Elaborate theatrical performances in Shakespeare's lifetime presented before the reigning monarch were known as court masques. These intricate and complex stories were presented in grand fashion, sparing no expense on...

In Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream , Puck has a line that says "And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen..." In Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio uses this...

Christopher Marlowe is one of the most fascinating—and mysterious—figures of Shakespeare's lifetime. A university-educated playwright at a time when that alone set him apart, Marlowe rose quickly through London's...

In Shakespeare's England, the middle of summer was a time of celebration. While the summer season begins at May Day, the longest day of the year, from June 23 into the 24th, was celebrated as the holiday of Midsummer...

Shakespeare is famous for his costume changes in his plays, including characters that swap genders and seemingly fool the world as their true identity simply by a change of clothes. Since Shakespeare's playing companies...

In Shakespeare's plays, there are over 150 references to the word "hair" across which Shakespeare talks about a barber fixing someone's hair, about hair being dyed, about losing your hair being a natural product of old...

In Shakespeare's plays, he uses the word "gauntlet" a total of 6 times. In one instance, the stage directions declare that a character "throws down his gauntlet." In Hamlet , stage directions again refer to a gauntlet...