Redressing the Balance: Gender in Shakespeare

With recent productions of King Lear at the Old Vic, the Donmar’s trilogy of The Tempest, Henry IV and Julius Caesar, and our own Twelfth Night in mind, a panel questions the reasons for, and challenges of, swapping the gender for some of Shakespeare’s key roles, and whether this makes them more relevant or accessible for today’s audience. What can an actress bring to these roles – and is there any fundamental difference in the way they must be played? Guests include Maria Aberg, Samuel Barnett, and Harriet Walter, whose new book, Brutus and Other Heroines, is an exploration of the Shakespearean canon through the eyes of ‘a self-identified feminist actor’, as she describes herself. Chaired by Genista McIntosh.