The Play Podcast

Episode 036: Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Host: Douglas Schatz Guest: Greg Hersov

The Play Podcast is a podcast dedicated to exploring the greatest new and classic plays. In each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

It is arguably the world’s most famous play. The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark contains all of the elements of great drama: a revenge thriller, a family ripped apart, a tragic love story, political ambition and intrigue, wondrous poetry and philosophical insight, but most of all a uniquely intelligent, vibrant and sympathetic character who we see in all his brilliance and frailty.

We always knew that at some point we would come to this Everest of all plays, and we do so now inspired by a new production at London’s Young Vic theatre, where Cush Jumbo is winning huge acclaim in the eponymous role. I am delighted to be joined by the director of this production, Greg Hersov, who with his immense experience helps guide us through the almost infinite enchantments and challenges of the play.

The Play Podcast - 053 - The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht

Host: Douglas Schatz Guest: Christopher Haydon

The Play Podcast is a podcast dedicated to exploring the greatest new and classic plays. In each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Bertolt Brecht wrote The Caucasian Chalk Circle in 1944 while in exile in the United States as a parable about the chaos and costs of war. After his return to East Germany in 1948 he updated the play to set it in the context of post-war Communism. His fable is both a theatrical fairy-tale and a political allegory.

I’m delighted to welcome the director of the first major London revival for 25 years, Christopher Haydon, artistic director of the Rose Theatre to discuss this challenging, complicated, compelling, even crazy play.

Episode 006: Betrayal by Harold Pinter

Host: Douglas Schatz Guest: Mark Taylor-Batty, senior lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds.

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play, which we talk about it in more depth than you will find in the reviews of any one production. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Pinter’s modern classic dissects the dynamics of betrayal in marriage, friendship and work. The ambiguities of the adulterous affair that is the core of the play are made all the more unsettling by the innovative chronology of the narrative: the play famously opens with the end of the affair and works backwards to its inception.

Joining us to mine the depths of Pinter’s compressed masterpiece is Mark Taylor-Batty, senior lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds and author of The Theatre of Harold Pinter (Bloomsbury 2014).

Our conversation was recorded via video link during the Coronavirus lockdown.

Episode 034: The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar

Host: Douglas Schatz Guest: Matt Beresford

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

George Farquhar’s rollicking Restoration Comedy The Recruiting Officer is ostensibly a portrait of officers engaged in the nefarious art of impressing men into the army in the country town of Shrewsbury, but it is as much a tale of the local ladies themselves recruiting for lovers and husbands. The classic comic satire of love and war, and sex and deception was first performed at Drury Lane in 1706, and went on to become one of the most frequently performed plays of the 18th century and a staple of education curricula and theatre programming ever since.

Director Matt Beresford joins us to assess the ‘recruiting officers’' respective strategies and successes.

Episode 012: Footnotes 1

Host: Douglas Schatz

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play, which we talk about it in more depth than you will find in the reviews of any one production. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

This episode is a recorded ragbag of selected extra Footnotes that we've compiled during the research and conversations from our first eleven episodes. You'll hear trivial titbits of information in the best tradition of footnotes, as well as pithy observations on all of the plays that we've covered so far.