By Aloïs Wood (they/them), Year 1, English Literature BA
Come along to see the York St John Shakespeare Society presents a set of pop-up scenes from Much Ado About Nothing in the Creative Centre on the YSJ campus on 3rd May! This performance will take place throughout the day at the ESRA Symposium on Shakespeare and Our Histories, punctuating talks by keynote speaker Darren Freebury Jones, of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and a range of panellists who will be discussing the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Drop by for brassy, touching and comedic acts! You are even invited to bring a packed lunch and stay for the wedding of Hero and Claudio… What could possibly go wrong?!
This article is coming to you from a member of the student production team, with a full guarantee of our passion and dedication to project. The Shakespeare Society here at YSJ is only in its founding year – and the Much Ado production has been in development since last October. This has been the society’s first time working together as a team of actors and creative management, and we’ve managed to always come out of rehearsal sessions feeling very accomplished!
Our superb actors, and the society as a whole, has handled Shakespeare with high creative zeal. Much Ado has been reframed into an early 2000s ‘battle of the bands’ movie set, a la Pitch Perfect or Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Beatrice and Benedick play members of rival bands, with the cast playing managers, fans, and roadies. Each character belongs uniquely to their actor, with much innovation abundant in their choice of stage acting when not speaking. Meanwhile, the work in direction and management have implemented ideas to have scenes work together and organise scripts and structuring. We have taken full liberty of the original work in abridging the script and playing with our interpretations in costumes, props, and staging. Dogberry and Verges will, of course, be providing security at the event.
In between these pop-up scenes, panellists will speak briefly on the ways Shakespeare intersects with our histories, personal and collective, with topics ranging from the early modern Dutch playwright Vondel, to translating sonnet 18 into the Azary language, to how the bard travelled to China. Most excitingly, in a double-bill panel on Much Ado About Nothing, yours truly shall take to the stage to discuss with more reflection and technicality the society’s approach and experience in working with older texts in the modern day (3.45 – 4.15 pm!). I am honoured to be sitting alongside Julie Raby, retired principal lecturer at YSJ, whose research focusses on Shakespeare in contemporary performance.
Come by and see us, to see how student produce and enjoy Shakespeare at York St. John! No payment required but please do book your slot here.
Check out the York International Shakespeare Festival programme here. There are many concessionary tickets available at YSJ, plus free events, and Theatre@41 have a student rush concession scheme for any unsold tickets just before their performances begin.
By Becca Green, 2nd Year English Literature and Creative Writing Student
At være eller ikke at være / Être, ou ne pas être / Ser, o no ser / að vera eða ekki vera / Ser ou não ser / 生存还是毁灭 / Sein oder Nichtsein / Essere o non essere / быть или не быть
York International Shakespeare Festival is coming back this year for its 10 year anniversary! The festival runs from the 22nd of April until the 4th of May and the line-up has events for all beloved Shakespeare fans, and even ones for those who are only just discovering his legendary work. This year there is a brand new feature event that aims to celebrate the love of Shakespeare on a global scale! Taking place on a day set just for all things Hamlet, the ‘To be or not to be’ event will showcase readings of the tragic hero’s monologue from one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays in multiple different languages. It is a chance to celebrate culture, community and creativity!
The inspiration for this event was born in the birthplace of Shakespeare himself. On a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, students from York St John University immersed themselves in their own global exploration of the text. It was a chance to celebrate international students and get involved with their Shakespeare studies in a brand new, immersive way.
YSJ PhD student Mie Claridge discusses her experience on the trip which inspired the upcoming festival event:
“It was a chilly but sunny day in March and after taking in the exhibition and seeing the house that Shakespeare was born in, we all gathered in the courtyard. There is a small podium where the museum sometimes stages readings, so Saffron suggested that we read and perform some scenes from plays studied on the module. I am very much not a performer, so although I wanted to get involved, I wasn’t sure how. Saffron urged me to read a section of Hamlet because my native language is Danish, so I googled the ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy and took to the podium to do a dramatic reading. Reading it in my native language was much less daunting than reading it in English because no one would know if I missed a word out! Others joined in with translations of ‘to be or not to be’ in their native languages and there were versions in Polish, Spanish, Japanese, and German. It was really cool to hear the same section read out in different languages because, although you can’t understand the words, the rhythm and intonation consistent across all translations makes it easily recognisable.”
‘Death by Hamlet’ takes place on the 29th of April on which the ‘To be or not to be’ event will take place. The festival is currently recruiting budding performers and Shakespeare enthusiasts to get involved with this sensational event. If you are an international student, someone who has a native language other than English, or perhaps is interested in preforming Shakespeare in urban slang or sign language, then please do get involved!
Expressions of interest can be sent to mieclaridge@gmail.com and we look forward to hearing your unique rendition of the soliloquy and celebrating Shakespeare on a global scale with everyone at the festival!
Click here for YISF information and booking links.
Prof Anne-Marie Evans, Dr Elodie Duché, and Dr Brendan Paddison are proud to launch the Women of York film, which commemorates and celebrates the way women have impacted our city.
This is the world premiere of this brand new short film about the history of women in York, made in collaboration with the Yorkshire Film Archive. The event will include a screening, a short panel discussion, and will be followed by a wine reception. Non-alcoholic drinks available.
Witch; sorceress; fairy; fay; goddess? Magical women in the literature of the fifteenth century and today. De Grey Lecture Theatre, Thursday 5th December, 6pm-8pm. Via Events.
The annual Words Matter lecture is one of the highlights of the English Literature year here at York St John University. This year, Dr Zoë Enstone presents her research on the magical women of fifteenth-century literature and their ongoing impact on contemporary culture.
As modern readers, we are often familiar with the tropes of Arthurian romance such as brave knights, damsels in distress, wise wizards, and dragons to be slain, many of which have been reshaped over centuries into fairy tales or children’s literature. However, the medieval romances themselves were often much more complicated than these aspects would suggest and offer a fascinating glimpse into the social and political concerns of a tumultuous historical period.
Zoë explores the developments of these Arthurian romances, which often featured magical women who were powerful, autonomous, and sometimes threatening figures, acting in ways that challenged the ideals of the court. She examines whether these portrayals reflect broader anxieties within an evolving Christian context, including the rising concerns around witchcraft and magic. Words really do matter, as the interplay of traditions and motivations saw these women shifting between categorisations like goddess, fairy and witch. A mediaevalist by backround, Zoë is nevertheless interested in the ways these works have influenced the more recent literature. In her lecture she introduces the rise of ‘witcherature’ and explores the renewed interest in the magical.
Dr Zoë Enstone is Associate Professor of English Literature and Associate Head of School for English Literature, specialising in medieval literature and medievalism. She has previously published on Melusine and magical women of the later romances and is currently working on a book on Morgan le Fay. More broadly, she’s interested in the ongoing influence of the medieval and has a forthcoming chapter on the ghost story tradition. She is the co-lead of the Interdisciplinary Witches Research Group here at York St John (https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/research/interdisciplinary-witches/).
For her third year dissertation, Hollie Whittle explored representations of sexuality, identity and trauma in Keisha the Sket by Jade L.B. and Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. The following extract is from her section on “code-switching”. Hollie is currently studying for her PGCE at York St John University.
From the 2000’s Black British culture in literary texts increased visibility. Novels written by young black writers meant that young black readers could relate and recognise themselves through fictional characters. The fictional icon at the forefront of Black girl history is that of Keisha the Sket (KTS), written by 13-year-old Jade L.B in 2005. Completely unaware of her impact, Jade began her chapters on Piczo, and became a naughties viral sensation. As stated by Jade in the 2021 published version, it is “a tale of this black girl from inner-city London, and the politics that governed her womanhood and sexuality” (2). […] With its use of slang and ebonics , KTS spoke to black teenage London youths. Carty-Williams was highly inspired by Jade L. B’s work when becoming a writer, describing the story as an “entry point to understanding what sex was” as a teenager and “where (I) understood the perceived value of the Black female body” (323).
The act of code-switching is when “a speaker moves according to context” (Rob Drummond, 642). The language that the younger characters in Queenie and KTS use is known as “Jafaican”, different from both the patois spoken by their family and the language they use outside of their communities. “Jafaican” is a combination “of two crucial (yet incorrect) assumptions about this kind of language”, known as “Jamaican-ness” and “fakeness”. Jafaican was first identified in 2006 (Kerswill, 2014), but was renamed as Multicultural London English (MLE) through Mohammed Emwazi. MLE has created a stir of negative comments by older generations, believing that youths are “literally talking their way into unemployment” (Harding, 2013).
Through the different generations in the novel Carty-Williams explores the variety of experiences within Queenie’s family. Queenie’s grandparents identify less as “Black-British” as they had grown up in Jamaica, compared to Queenie and her mother who grew up in the UK. Queenie’s stepfather, Roy, calls Queenie, who works in the primarily white publishing industry, a “bounty”, suggesting that she is “white on the inside” and “brown on the outside” (297) as Carty-Williams represents Queenie as having a literary ‘formal’ way of speaking. This insult may be also to do with the white settings that she is found in, as Queenie and other young black women navigate a very different environment from previous generations.
Keisha’s world is very small when referring to location, which emphasises the use of MLE, and code-switching seems to be non-existent in her small life of being at school, home and other local youths’ houses. Queenie understands the act of code-switching due to the area that she grew up in, along with her friends and family despite not speaking it herself. Queenie expresses the frustrations of code-switching in order to remain more ‘professional’ in the workplace due to the negative connotations with MLE. Queenie’s friend, Kyazike, converses with Queenie: “Fam, did you hear how I have to switch up my voice out there? The new manager, some prissy white woman, has told me that I need speak ‘better’. Doesn’t want me to ‘intimidate customers’. Can you believe that? The only person I’m intimidating is her, fam” (360). Despite Kyazike’s well-paid job in a bank and hard work, she has to code-switch in order to match her location and the people that she is surrounded by.
Ironically, the inspiration for Queenie would have the original MLE of the title, Keisha Da Sket, later replaced to Keisha ‘the’ Sket when picked up by a mainstream publisher, Penguin. In the original KTS chapters Jade L.B uses constant MLE for all the characters speech and Keisha’s narration, along with a 2000’s text style of writing such as “Ne wayz cum 2 ma yrd in lyk half an hour?” (22). The original KTS chapters created a niche piece of cultural fiction for a targeted audience which is based of life events of youths that Jade L.B was surrounded by. In Keisha Revisited Jade still includes MLE slang in the characters speech, but uses standard English in the narrative. This new publication not only creates an easier understanding to wider audiences, but, the author feels, it also gives more humanity; “Revisiting the text now, attempting accountability and acknowledging my internalised misogynoir is central to embracing and feeling some pride in my role in creating a cultural work that a generation enjoyed” (14).
Due to Keisha the Sket being such a locally popular literary piece from inner-city London, and not aimed for audiences outside that region, there is no definition as to what certain words or phrases mean. Queenie does discuss how the black working-class community area that she grew up in, has become a whiter liberal area that has had small black businesses’ taken over; The sense of community that Queenie had felt as a child has left her when she comes back to visit it when she feels a sense of loss in her own identity.
The beauty in the writings of Black-British writers is that there is always a sense of uncertainty when referring to identity, place and belonging, as woman, working-class and non-white. Candice Carty-Williams and Jade L.B have written about where they grew up and what and where they find familiarity, which is a comfort for readers who might find relation to it but is also an insight for readers that do not. These novels are not meant to generalise the Black-British experience, but to embrace the topics that are very real within communities.
Bibliography
Carty–Williams, Candice. Queenie, 2019
Drummond, Rob. (2017) “(Mis)interpreting urban youth language: white kids sounding black?” Journal of Youth Studies, 20:5, 640-660, DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2016.1260692
Harding, Nick. 2013.“Why Are So Many Middle-class Children Speaking in Jamaican Patois? A Father of an 11-year-old Girl Laments a Baffling Trend.” Daily Mail, October 11
Kerswill, Paul (2014) “The objectification of ‘Jafaican’:the discoursal embedding of Multicultural London English in the British media.” In The Media and Sociolinguistic Change, edited by Jannis Androutsopoulos. Berlin: De Gruyter, 428–455.
Come along to see the York St John Shakespeare Society presents a set of pop-up scenes from Much Ado About Nothing in the Creative Centre on the YSJ campus on 3rd May! This performance will take place throughout the day at the ESRA Symposium on Shakespeare and Our Histories, punctuating talks by keynote speaker Darren Freebury Jones, of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and a range of panellists who will be discussing the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Drop by for brassy, touching and comedic acts! You are even invited to bring a packed lunch and stay for the wedding of Hero and Claudio… What could possibly go wrong?!
Our superb actors, and the society as a whole, has handled Shakespeare with high creative zeal. Much Ado has been reframed into an early 2000s ‘battle of the bands’ movie set, a la Pitch Perfect or Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Beatrice and Benedick play members of rival bands, with the cast playing managers, fans, and roadies. Each character belongs uniquely to their actor, with much innovation abundant in their choice of stage acting when not speaking. Meanwhile, the work in direction and management have implemented ideas to have scenes work together and organise scripts and structuring. We have taken full liberty of the original work in abridging the script and playing with our interpretations in costumes, props, and staging. Dogberry and Verges will, of course, be providing security at the event.
In between these pop-up scenes, panellists will speak briefly on the ways Shakespeare intersects with our histories, personal and collective, with topics ranging from the early modern Dutch playwright Vondel, to translating sonnet 18 into the Azary language, to how the bard travelled to China. Most excitingly, in a double-bill panel on Much Ado About Nothing, yours truly shall take to the stage to discuss with more reflection and technicality the society’s approach and experience in working with older texts in the modern day (3.45 – 4.15 pm!). I am honoured to be sitting alongside Julie Raby, retired principal lecturer at YSJ, whose research focusses on Shakespeare in contemporary performance.
