Explore This Month's E-Resources - School of Drama: February 2024

Shakespeare’s most iconic work, HAMLET explodes with big ideas and is the ultimate story of loyalty, love, betrayal, murder and madness. Hamlet’s father is dead and Denmark has crowned Hamlet’s uncle the new king. Consumed by grief, Hamlet struggles to exact revenge, with devastating consequences.

From its sell-out run at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre comes the film version of their unique and critically acclaimed production, with BAFTA-nominee Maxine Peake in the title role. This ground breaking stage production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, was the Royal Exchange Theatre’s fastest-selling show in a decade.

Advice to actors and would-be actors from professionals who, though known and respected at the time (1966) would in the decades to come gain even greater recognition. Murray Hamilton, James Earl Jones, Jack Klugman and Rip Torn give opinions on the lack of good roles, the incursions of television, Hollywood vs. Broadway, the importance of regional theater, the necessary mobility of an actor, rehearsal and experimentation, can actors have a normal family life, keeping your day job, acting as a sophisticated form of showing off, and why these stars went into acting themselves.

Featuring a tour de force performance from Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare is a one-man show about the life and work of the world’s greatest playwright.

Written by the renowned scholar Jonathan Bate, and taking its cue from Jacques’ famous ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech in As You Like It, the drama traces Shakespeare’s life from his birth in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 to his burial there fifty-two years later. Weaving together this story with extracts from many of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, Simon Callow presents a vivid and very human portrait of the man and of the Elizabethan world in which he lived.

Recorded before an audience during the play’s triumphant London run, Being Shakespeare is both a wonderful introduction to the author and a richly nuanced, funny and fascinating study for those who already love his plays.

This film provides an in depth exploration of the complex and intimate relationship between Actor and Director when working on a play-text.

It was shot extensively during 3 months of intensive rehearsal and performance in 2011. The core of the process presented in the film involves working with physical and (subsequent) emotional intensity in the space, and crucially not imposing any preconceived ideas onto the work.

With his actors Dalip explores characters and relationships in and through the moment, and via intense, provocative and consistent questioning of physical choices the actor's transformation is seen to clearly emerge over time. The work is centred on the concept that Action precedes Emotion and the development of a vital dual consciousness between character and actor.

Voice & the Core is a training film that combines core strength exercises with basic voice work and is for performers who have had some training, or understanding in voice and movement. Robert Lewis demonstrates these twelve exercises that have been inspired by selected Pilates poses. The work is an integration of voice and body; the connection of thought, feeling, breath, voice and the core muscle groups. Core strength training improves posture and is essential for every day movement and performance. This training video demonstrates to the performer that tension and freedom are equally as important and are essential for performance.

White Dark, written by Chris Jackson and Robert Lewis, was an experimental one man performance which premiered at the Ten Days on the Island Festival in Launceston, Tasmania in 2007. White Dark integrates the philosophies and practice of Butoh dance with voice, and explores the voice in its entirety: the light, the dark, the highs and lows.