The 68th annual Royal Shakespeare Company summer school, run in partnership with the Shakespeare Institute since the Institute’s foundation in 1951, filled the University’s Stratford research bastion from 17-21 August  with RSC actors and other theatre personnel, with leading academics, and with an alert and appreciative audience of over 200 of the RSC’s most loyal spectators. 

Highlights included lunchtime presentations by Institute PhD students, a session with the RSC’s screen director and researcher John Wyver, lectures by distinguished former Institute students Emma Smith, Laurie Maguire and Andy Kesson, and a lively culminating debate between the veteran Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington and the Institute’s Director, Michael Dobson, as to the relative merits of the RSC’s current productions of Othello and The Merchant of Venice, the latter starring Birmingham Drama graduate Patsy Ferran as Portia.  

Seen in these photographs are Hugh Quarshie (Othello), Henry Goodman (Volpone), the former game-show host Matthew Kelly (a fine Corvino in Volpone, seen here with Michael Dobson), Patsy Ferran (Portia), and Michael Billington.

Hugh Quarshie
Henry Goodman
Michael Dobson with Matthew Kelly
Patsy Ferran
Michael Billington