Discover how Shakespeare’s Stratford roots shaped his extraordinary work – and why his life and art still matter today. Followed by Q&A.

How did a schoolboy from Stratford become the most celebrated playwright in the English language?

Following the success of Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, this talk brings Shakespeare’s ordinary life back into conversation with his extraordinary art. A boy who found another life in books, plays and daydreams left Stratford for London, becoming an actor and the leading playwright in the foremost royal company of his day. Yet he only rented rooms in the capital, described himself in legal documents as a “Gentleman of Stratford”, and returned home again and again.

In this talk, Professor Ewan Fernie will move beyond the choice between Shakespeare as a comical old buffer and Shakespeare as untouchable genius. By seeing him as both a small-town operator and a world-changing artist, we’ll rediscover what his life and work means more than 400 years later – and how his writing can still shake us out of complacency, deepen our realism and inspire change.

Doors open at 7pm, talk starts at 7:30pm - come down early to grab a good seat!

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Speaker Bio:

Professor Ewan Fernie is Chair of Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was academic anchor for the BBC’s Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius and Channel 4’s Judi Dench: Shakespeare, My Family and Me. He directed the £2 million lottery-funded Everything to Everybody project, which revived the world’s first great Shakespeare library with communities across Birmingham. His books include Shakespeare for Freedom, Shame in Shakespeare and The Demonic: Literature and Experience, and he is currently completing Anti-Hero, a study of the life and afterlife of Thomas Carlyle.

This event is 18+

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