The women in Love’s Labour’s Lost
Guildford Shakespeare Company and
Orange Tree Theatre
August 2026
114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
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Love’s Labour’s Lost was probably written in 1594-95, following an extended period when theatres were closed by the plague, during which time Shakespeare had occupied himself with writing poetry. This play, and several of the other plays that he wrote around the same time, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet, are characterised by an increase in the poetic verse they contain. Indeed, Love’s Labour’s Lost is perhaps the most poetic play that Shakespeare ever wrote, two third’s of its lines being in verse, more than half of which are in rhyme.
The play is certainly renowned for its ornate language; both Shakepeare and his characters are almost drunk on their own verbal talent and wit. Its intricate word play may be one of the reasons that Love’s Labour’s Lost was described as a “pleasant conceited comedy” on the title page of the first printed edition in 1598, as well as for its frothy merry-go-round of courting couples and its highly patterned aesthetic structure.
I am delighted to be joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both en plein air.
Tom has previously appeared on the podcast, in episode 72, when he talked so knowledgably about Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer.
Shakespeare’s plays covered on The Play Podcast:
109 – Rome and Juliet
104 – Twelfth Night
103 – Titus Andronicus
076 – Othello
070 – King Lear
064 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
048 – Much Ado About Nothing
038 – Macbeth
036 – Hamlet
005 – The Tempest
Tom Littler
Tom Littler has been the Artistic Director and Joint Chief Executive of the Orange Tree theatre since 2023, where his directing credits include Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Somerset Maugham’s The Circle, Churchill in Moscow by Howard Brenton, The Rivals by Sheridan, and Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer.
Tom was previously the Artistic Director and Executive Producer at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London from 2017 to 2022, during which he won several awards, including the OffWest End Award for Best Artistic Director, as well as The Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Theatre Making during Lockdown and the Stage Award for Best Fringe Theatre.
Tom has directed over 70 productions, including The Tempest, Tonight at 8:30, For Services Rendered, Miss Julie, Creditors, The Living Room, First Episode and Love All, all at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Other credits include: Measure for Measure (Cambridge Arts), Hamlet (Guildford Shakespeare Company), Good Grief (Theatre Royal Bath), Dances of Death (Gate Theatre), Murder in the Cathedral (Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford), Single Spies (Theatre by the Lake and Theatre Royal York), Dear Uncle (Theatre by the Lake), and Jingo (Finborough Theatre).
Tom has also directed the musicals A Little Night Music (Budapest), Cabaret (Frankfurt and Munich), Saturday Night (Arts Theatre) and Anyone Can Whistle (Jermyn Street).
Tom recommended Bloodsport by Ava Pickett.
Photo by Rebecca Need Menear
A Footnote to our episode on William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost with more on the “curious foppery of language” on display in the play.
115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg
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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.
Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.
Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.
113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
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