The RSC Transformation

The heart of Shakespeare's home town is a building site at the moment! The iconic Royal Shakespeare Theatre is closed for modernisation.....and some. The site is undergoing transformation and in a couple of years will re open in its new guise.

It will retain some of the listed 1930's architecture by Elizabeth Scott which includes the foyer and the fountain staircase - otherwise it will be completely new. New that is apart from the fact that it will be drawing on some elements that would have been familiar to Shakespeare himself, namely a thrust stage that takes the actors out into the auditorium rather than keeping them safely behind the proscenium arch that framed them in the previous Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

On Friday I will be kitted out with boots, safety helmet and high visibility gear and go on site to record the next in a series of podcasts for the project. It has reached an interesting stage with one of the new features - the tower is taking shape.

Let's hope the weather is clement - I can't wait to see behind those hoardings.

This audio is the most recent podcast in the series and goes behind the scenes of the temporary Courtyard Theatre a space that is drawing plaudits in its own right. And rightly so - it's a great space in which to experience Shakespeare. And there's lots more audio and video on the part of the RSC's website dedicated to this transformation.

Ice Cream Walks...

Podcats has got the green light from Henley in Arden to start work on the next Talking the Walk. I am delighted that this lovely ancient town, just a few miles from Stratford Upon Avon, is to be next on the TTW list as it is brimming with possibilities.


Henley's High Street is a mile long - and in that mile there are at least 150 buildings listed as being of special architectural or historical interest - so there'll be plenty to talk about. And that's not counting the local Henley Ice Cream which will have to be sampled during the recording!



The'Forest of Arden' features in Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' and many of those buildings would have been there in Shakespeare's time. It is only 7 miles from Stratford so one of the goals of this episode will be to encourage more of the people who visit Shakespeare's birthplace (which they do in their hundreds of thousands) to venture out to Henley. It is considerably less crowded than Stratford which also adds to its charm.



While we are making the audio - sometime this autumn - the town's website is being redesigned to make the most of it. At the same time we will be making a 'taster' version for YouTube. The audio version will be around half and hour long so that people can download it to an mp3 player to use in conjunction with a map and to listen to while they walk. It will also have a listen now button on the website so that people can continue browsing while they listen.

The YouTube video will be much shorter - probably less than 5 minutes but the plan is that it works to drive traffic to the website and the audio and the town!


If all goes to plan the new episode will be published as a Podcast, online at the Henley in Arden website and of course as a download at Shakespeare Country who are contributing a third of the cost of production later this autumn.