Author: Saffron Vickers Walkling

York Shakespeare Project’s The Tempest is touring around North and East Yorkshire between Sept 23rd and Oct 1st 2022, culminating with a special performance at The York Theatre Royal. Book your tickets here.

20 years after YSP began its mission to put on all of Shakespeare’s plays “within the boundaries of the City of York”  it marks the end of this ambitious project with its final production, The Tempest. Directed by Philip Parr, who is also artistic director of the York International Shakespeare Festival, it draws on the talents of “local amateur actors, stage managers, technicians, costume and prop makers”, including our very own Effie Warboys in a leading role as Miranda, Prospero’s daughter. Effie, a third year Creative Writing student, took our Shakespeare: Perspectives module last year. Now she is about to make her stage debut on the mainstage of the York Theatre Royal.

“Taking part in the York Shakespeare Project has been beyond a dream,” she said.  “Playing

Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, has meant more to me than I could have ever imagined it would, especially with such a strong and talented cast around me.” 

Philip Parr explains how important it had been to get the casting of Miranda right: “The York Shakespeare Project had a desire for the actor who plays Miranda to be younger than the project – so, like Effie, to be born after the year 2000.”

I asked Effie what The Tempest was about for her.

 She explained that “The Tempest as a show is one about mystery and about family, both loving and dysfunctional, and really about community as a whole – which is what the York Shakespeare Project has also always been about.”

The director, Philip, has a long relationship with community theatre, both in the UK and in continental Europe, which was why he was the ideal choice to direct this “last play”.

Adam Kirkbride, postgraduate student on our MA in Contemporary Literature, reflects on our annual departmental Words Matter Lecture. There is a link to the lecture recording at the bottom of this post.

Since coming to York St John, the Words Matter lecture has been something that I look forward to every year without fail. For those who may not be aware, the Words Matter lecture is a staple of the autumn term, an evening of wine, literature, and inspiration where we watch one of the English Literature team deliver a lecture on their current area of research.

This year’s Words Matter lecture was delivered by Dr Saffron Vickers Walkling on the topic of “Hamlet and the Legacy of 1989”. I must confess that before this lecture I was something of a Hamlet-phobe (as Dr Vickers Walkling pointed out, “Hamlet talks about revenging his father for nearly four hours”). Nevertheless, through the magic of the Words Matter lecture, I emerged from the lecture theatre with a newfound appreciation for Shakespeare’s moodiest protagonist.

Dr Vickers Walkling’s interest in political adaptations of Hamlet began in Japan in 1995, when they watched a modern dress, Mandarin Chinese appropriation of Hamlet. This appropriation, first performed five years prior in a period of major political events and economic change, was the beginning of a fascination with politically charged, iconoclastic adaptations of Shakespeare’s most famous play. Across the course of the lecture, Dr Vickers Walkling discussed three adaptations of Hamlet, Lin Zhaohua’s Mandarin Chinese appropriation (1990/1995), Jan Klata’s “H.” (2004/2006), and Sulayman Al Bassam’s “The Al-Hamlet Summit” (2002/2004). Continue reading “The 2021 Words Matter Lecture reviewed by Adam Kirkbride: Dr Saffron Vickers Walkling on Hamlet.”