A little thread about fun upcoming book events! Next Monday I’ll be speaking to @willtosh.bsky.social & answering all your questions at this virtual event hosted by @srsrensoc.bsky.social (& @racheljwillie.bsky.social) @routledgelit.bsky.social www.crowdcast.io/c/shax-kitchen

It’s Food Season at the British Library. I attended a fascinating panel today on Much Ado About Cooking, looking at food in Shakespeare’s plays, chaired by @willtosh.bsky.social with Sam Bilton, Sheila Cavanagh and Simon Russell Beale. @britishlibrary.bsky.social #muchadoaboutcooking

Book Launch: join @nicosiamarissa.bsky.social, in conversation with @willtosh.bsky.social, in the Kitchen with Shakespeare at Brunch, Lunch, Tea & Suppertime!* 22 June 2026, 9:00PDT/12:00EDT/17:00BST *other [meal]time zones available rensoc.org.uk/announcement... #SRSlyGood #EarlyModernEvents

Coming up on Monday 23rd March the Why Shakespeare? Podcast with guest @willtosh.bsky.social will be recorded live in store. To be in the audience check out the details here waterstones.com/events/search/… #shakespeare

Out now! Literary Review's September 2025 issue, featuring @willtosh.bsky.social on Christopher Marlowe @claireharman.bsky.social on Muriel Spark Seamus Perry on Tennyson Lucy Hughes-Hallett on the stiff upper lip Patrick Wilcken on Easter Island and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books

In the Current Issue: Will Tosh on Christopher Marlowe * John Banville on Christopher Clarke * Claire Harman on Muriel Spark * Seamus Perry on Tennyson * Lucy Hughes-Hallett on the stiff upper lip * L...

literaryreview.co.uk

This will be FAB 🧚🏻‍♂️

Sacha Coward@sachacoward.bsky.social · last yr.

SO EXCITED to be taking over @nationaltrust.org.uk's Fenton House in London with a celebration of queer folklore, Shakespeare and fairy tales with our 'Away With The Faeries' event on Friday 8th August. See you there (if you dare)? Grab a ticket below: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/london...

From apprentice to master playwright: Shakespeare learns his craft. ✍️ Will Tosh

From apprentice to master playwright: Shakespeare learns his craft

Pub quiz masters with a taste for William Shakespeare are spoiled for choice when it comes to red letter years. The playwright’s birth and death, the building and burning down of the Globe, and the...

buff.ly

In an excerpt from "Straight Acting," @willtosh.bsky.social tells the story of Richard Barnfield's meteoric rise in literary London in the 1590s and how his groundbreaking poetry influenced Shakespeare's sonnets. Read the full excerpt: www.folger.edu/blogs/shakes...

Shakespeare's queer inspiration | Folger Shakespeare Library

Folger Shakespeare Library is the world's largest Shakespeare collection, the ultimate resource for exploring Shakespeare and his world. Shakespeare belongs to you. His world is vast. Come explore. Jo...

folger.edu

Absolutely chuffed and very grateful that STRAIGHT ACTING has been shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize 2024 - it’s made my week! www.str.org.uk/grants-prize...

Grazie mille to Fabio and Sonia Massai and all at Sapienza Università di Roma for having me!

Fabio Ciambella@fabiociambella.bsky.social · last yr.

Such a pleasure and honour to hear @willtosh.bsky.social's wonderful talk about Barnfield, especially as he opened his seminar with the cover of the anthology I'm co-editing with Camilla Caporicci and Cristiano Ragni for @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social

I can’t promise this will be brilliant but I can certainly promise to have a brilliant time delivering it IN ROME. 🥳 indeed!

Fabio Ciambella@fabiociambella.bsky.social · last yr.

🥳Join us on Thursday for @willtosh.bsky.social's amazingly promising talk about Richard Barnfield, Shakespeare and scholarly unscrupulousness. Here's the link: meet.google.com/dut-eajr-qja

Absolutely delighted that #StraightActing is out in paperback (that’s like quarto, for all you early modern drama fans) today!

Sceptre Books@sceptrebooks.bsky.social · last yr.

WAIT... WAS SHAKESPEARE GAY? The answer is both simpler and more complex than you might think... #StraightActing by @willtosh.bsky.social is a captivating & surprising exploration of queer culture in Shakespeare's England. www.waterstones.com/book/straigh...

SOME NEWS: It's been a honour and a joy to have devised this celebration of the glorious life, work and wit of P.G. Wodehous, hosted by Sir Stephen Fry, with guest stars including Alexander Armstrong and Stephen Mangan. Tuesday 20th May, Wilton's Music Hall, in aid of the National Literacy Trust.

Pleasance@pleasance.co.uk · last yr.

We're honoured to be presenting Plum: Homage to Happiness, at Wilton's Music Hall on 20th May. Join Sir Stephen Fry, as he hosts a celebration of all things P.G. Wodehouse. This sparkling soirée promises to be a night to remember! 🍸 Tickets here: wiltons.org.uk/whats-on/plu...

Everybody knows #Shakespeare. Beneath the surface, much of Shakespeare’s work surrounds ideas of gender and queerness. Welcome, @willtosh.bsky.social as we discuss his book 'The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare' @sceptrebooks.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/0aYb... #shelfie

Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare with Will Tosh

If It Ain't Baroque... · Episode

open.spotify.com

Very glad to have had the chance to review Simon Goldhill’s queer history of King’s for @thetls.bsky.social t.co/CCdCXZNPtU

Enjoyed chatting to @mrnicklevine.bsky.social for this fun piece on Edward II www.bbc.co.uk/culture/arti...

Edward II: Did a gay love affair spark a 14th-Century royal crisis?

A new revival of Christopher Marlowe's pioneering play about the 14th-Century King of England puts the spotlight back on his relationship with his male "favourite" Piers Gaveston.

bbc.co.uk

What fun to go to the movies with Jason and get AWFULLY nitpicky about Shakespeare in Love - a film which I still adore, despite everything.

Jason Herbert@herberthistory.bsky.social · last yr.

Was William Shakespeare gay? @willtosh.bsky.social drops in to say that question is only a drop in the bucket to understand the playwright and his world. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE drops NOW on HATM Podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

Hurry hurry! It’s a month or so till STRAIGHT ACTING: THE MANY QUEER LIVES OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE comes out in paperback, but order it from @waterstones.bsky.social today or tomorrow and get 25% off! #WPreorders #StraightActing www.waterstones.com/book/straigh...

Straight Acting by Will Tosh | Waterstones

Buy Straight Acting by Will Tosh from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

waterstones.com

This is the most dazzlingly written piece of criticism, and I’m not just saying that because Cheney very shrewdly reads Straight Acting alongside Marjorie Garber’s Shakespeare in Bloomsbury: read to the end for a powerful articulation of the consolations of literature in terrible times.

Matthew Cheney@melikhovo.bsky.social · last yr.

Some thoughts on "Shakespeare in Bloomsbury" by Marjorie Garber and "Straight Acting" by Will Tosh, as well as thoughts on the consolations of reading Shakespeare in these dismal days... matthewcheney.net/blog/strange...

Wonderful - the whole film is available to watch via a link in the article. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

‘He was unforgettable’: the mesmerising star of cult documentary Andy the Furniture Maker

He used to fish for oysters but he fled to the hedonism of London, where he was taken under the wing of Derek Jarman. But Andy Marshall was also a creator of dazzling furniture – and the star of a pio...

theguardian.com

Are we at a turning point in world history? | David Motadel

Are we at a turning point in world history? | David Motadel

Political leaders increasingly caution that we are facing a historical ‘inflection point’. Are we? In 1919, at the height of a global crisis that resulted from the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, the devastation of the first world war, and the…

theguardian.com

We don’t talk enough about how utterly repellent the food looks on #TheTraitors

Will on Will…a wonderfully researched and nuanced take on the “was he or wasn’t he” question Friends…he was. @willtosh.bsky.social did all the incredibly researched and passionate legwork, inadvertently definitively answering the question and, more importantly, casting WS accurately in his time

A widely used #Christmas time special of the European past was to buy and wear a paper crown. A paper crown, #skystorians? Yes, a printed paper crown. And the tiny street seller highlighted in this #earlymodern painting is selling them. Let's have a festive 🧵

Currently reading #booksky #shakespeare @willtosh.bsky.social

Grateful to have the opportunity to review Simon Russell Beale’s intelligent and rather moving memoir-meets-character-study A PIECE OF WORK. I’m sure SRB isn’t: he comes across as deeply thoughtful and wise. www.spectator.co.uk/article/fort...

Fortitude, emotional intelligence and wit – the defining qualities of Simon Russell Beale

The path to National Treasureland is no paved highway. Simon Russell Beale, the finest classical actor of his generation, was nearly lost to academia (he swerved a PhD in Victorian literature), and fa...

spectator.co.uk

Get 2025 off to a grand start!

Orange Tree Theatre@orangetreetheatre.bsky.social · 2y ago

We're delighted to announce that @willtosh.bsky.social will be launching our brand new Saturday Seminars series in January! Join Will and Twelfth Night director Tom Littler as they delve deeper into Shakespeare's masterpiece of mistaken identity. 🎟️ Sat 11 Jan • 11am • Tickets £15

James Joyce admits how he funded the writing of his novels