'This is not engaging with the complex, problematic history of Bayreuth or the Ring. It’s just another form of mindless scrolling.' Whatever you think of Wagner, he would be turning in his grave. Bayreuth deserves so much more for its 150th. Shame. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

Ring Cycle review – AI staging dispenses with drama to create banal bric-a-brac

For the festival’s 150th anniversary, the creative team have turned to AI to generate visuals reflecting Wagner’s tetralogy’s past, present – and future. The hyperactive result is a dismal, mindless m...

theguardian.com

Really excellent, except this (hilarious, perfectly pitched) description of the feeble husband of the woman our protagonist is having an 'affair' with. Feels a little too... me 😬😅

Stephen Watkins@drawcansir.bsky.social · 4d ago

Finally getting to Luke Kennard's #BlackBag, which is so brilliant already and I'm only a few chapters in.

Finally getting to Luke Kennard's #BlackBag, which is so brilliant already and I'm only a few chapters in.

Saw The Odyssey today, which I thought was brilliant in so many ways. Unlike everybody else on the planet, however, I won't be elaborating on a substack or in the national press.

A young vixen has taken to sleeping in our garden during the day. We have to be extra quiet in the kitchen; the slightest noise wakes her up and then she skedaddles. Cunning little vixen, she certainly is not, just very sweet. #wildlife

‘Despite not securing the succession, despite being Catholic, Catherine managed to be perceived as an ideal consort. Royal wives were – and are – loved or loathed according to values that remain spectacularly unchanged.’ @alicehunt.bsky.social on Charles II’s wife. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Alice Hunt · Honourable Chains: Catherine of Braganza

Despite not securing the succession, despite being Catholic, Catherine, queen of Great Britain from 1662 until Charles...

lrb.co.uk

Very excited to hear that our panel on Restoration and 18th-century adaptations of Shakespeare's early comedies has been accepted for ESRA next year in Bangor. 🤣 I'm joining Lisanna Calvi (Verona) and Filip Krajník (Masaryk) to talk about recurrence in adaptations of 'As You Like It' and Falstaff.

You can read all pieces by and about Carlo Ginzburg from the 𝘓𝘙𝘉 archive here: www.lrb.co.uk/contributors...

Carlo Ginzburg

lrb.co.uk

My review of Deborah Payne's new book, 'The Business of the English Restoration Theatre' (2024) is out now in the latest issue of @restorationjournal.bsky.social! muse.jhu.edu/pub/298/arti...

Lucas, along with George Lisle, was shot in Colchester's Castle Park on Fairfax's order, after surrendering in August 1648. There's a memorial on the site today. John Milton celebrated Fairfax's conduct of the siege, writing that 'Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings / Victory home...'

Colchester Civic Society@colcivicsociety.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#OnThisDay during the #SiegeOfColchester - 17 June 1648, Sir Charles Lucas asked for an exchange of prisoners but this was refused. Provisions were sought out and collected from the surrounding countryside and a "tract" giving news of the first few days was printed in London.

While nobody wants an academic Restorationist anymore (2 rejections this week, and counting), the late 17th-century has so much to offer us today. Enjoy this compilation of music, poetry, and prose relating to post-1660 England here! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Restoration England

Poetry, prose and play speeches from Charles II's England alongside music evoking the era.

bbc.co.uk

Yes! So would I! Move over Tudors, it’s time for the 17th century now.

James Butler@piercepenniless.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I'd also very much like a multi-series English Civil Wars / Commonwealth / Restoration drama, and it's completely nuts there hasn't been a modern streaming-era one.

Next month (20 June), #Colchester Choral Society performs G&S's Iolanthe. I'm singing Strephon, a fairy from the waste up and mortal from the waste down. He's in love with a shepherdess, ward to a Lord. Parliament gets involved. It's a riot. Come along! colchesterchoralsociety.co.uk/etn/gilbert-...

Drury Lane Theatre opened #onthisday in 1663 and the current building was built 1812. A Grade 1 listed building in Covent Garden hosting plays ever since. Interior view is from Rudolph Ackerman's 'Microcosm of London' 1808-11 (AN 20.1.5).

A 'gift to scholars, students, and practitioners who wish to champion performance as a worthwhile research praxis in its own right'. Lovely review of Performing Restoration Shakespeare by Katie Adkison @richardschoch.bsky.social & @awinkler90.bsky.social www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1017/...

Performing Restoration Shakespeare. Amanda Eubanks Winkler, Claude Fretz, and Richard Schoch, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. xxiv + 220 pp. £88. | Renaissance Quarterly: Vol 78, No ...

journals.uchicago.edu

This is great. It's actually Charles I's mum-in-law, Marie, arriving in 1639. The original is from Histoire de l'entree de la reyne mere... dans la Grande-Bretaigne (1639). Apparently she was received with 'mille acclamations de joye & de contentement', which sounds nice. archive.org/details/lent...

Colchester Museums@colmuseums.bsky.social · 4mo ago

A queen entered Colchester. We're just not sure who. This 18th-c wash drawing shows a royal procession down the High Street. French inscription, copied "after the print" by artist Hare one October. Catherine of Braganza? Queen Anne? Fiction? Someone thought it worth copying. We're still puzzled.

How many of us have benefited from Pete's generous, insightful, and fulsome reviews over the years, both in our teaching and research? Incredible stuff. 👏

Pete Kirwan@drpetekirwan.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This weekend I posted my 796th, 797th, 798th, 799th, and 800th reviews on The BARDATHON, my blog which turns twenty years old next month, with the latest being Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet. I’m proud of my long work on the blog, and you can subscribe at this link: drpeterkirwan.com/the-bardathon/

Happy @alcs.co.uk Day to all who celebrate! £130 for me this year. Unfortunately, this will have to go on fixing the oven, which has just broken, rather than something more fun... 😅

I've been looking forward to this for a long time. See you in 6(ish) hours... 🐉

'Shakespeare and the Restoration Repertory shows how Shakespeare contributed to one of the most vibrant and innovative chapters of English theatre culture not as an isolated entity, but as a productive part of a much more diverse repertory.' Nice review of my book 😊 hdl.handle.net/11222.digili...

Just picked this up from the library. Always enjoy @joemoransblog.bsky.social's stuff, and this is no exception. '[T]o have failed, to have plumbed the depths and know that one cannot fall further, is not so bad.' Fail better, indeed.

Exciting to see this volume - with an essay by yours truly on Restoration theatrical rivalries - will be available imminently. It also has a very fun cover! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Restoration Reshaping

An Interdisciplinary study of British theater between 1660 and 1737. Restoration Reshaping explores English theater between the reopening of the playhouses in 1660 and the Licensing Act of 1737, exami...

press.uchicago.edu

Back after a long break. I've been struggling to adjust to my new non-academic life and needed some time to figure out what that looks like for me. But I miss hearing about the fantastic stuff everyone's doing, despite the HE bin-fire. So I'm here again, and looking forward to (re)connecting 🙂