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012 – Footnotes 1

Sep 3, 2020 | Podcast Episodes | 0 comments

This episode is a selection of the Footnotes that we’ve compiled during the research and conversations that we’ve had so far on the podcast. It is a recorded smorgasbord of fragments, with titbits of information in the best tradition of footnotes, as well as additional observations of my own on each play. So if you’re interested in:

  • How many copies of A Doll’s House were sold when it was first published
  • Who Tennessee Williams chose as his favourite writer(s)
  • What Samuel Beckett thought of the Lord Chamberlain
  • Why lipstick is important to the mothers of Aberfan
  • Where Shakespeare’s real life inspiration for The Tempest came from
  • The significance of the island of Torcello to Robert and Emma in Pinter’s Betrayal
  • How an Icelandic volcano lay behind Duncan Macmillan’s meditations about climate change in Lungs
  • Why Peggy Ashcroft felt naked as Hester Collyer in The Deep Blue Sea
  • How going to work on an egg might turn you into a footballer rather than a famous cook
  • What the “beholders’ share” is, or
  • Where the “pesto triangle” is

among many other trivial and profound footnotes, join me for our ragbag review of the plays that we’ve talked about over the past eleven episodes.

PS You are of course also welcome to read the full set of Footnotes for each episode here on the website.

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