Although trash talking may seem like a modern phenomenon, trying to intimidate an opponent with insults and taunts has been going on at least since Moses and the Israelites took on Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Given the foreign and domestic conflicts that persistently troubled Elizabethan England, there can be little doubt that, whatever it might have been called at the time, trash talking was also a regular occurrence during Shakespeare’s lifetime. It should be no surprise, therefore, that Shakespeare himself used trash talking frequently and effectively throughout his plays…

No Shakespeare enthusiast’s trip to Southwark would be complete without a trip to the Globe, both in its original location and its current reconstructed one at Shakespeare’s Globe. True Shakespeare completists, however, won’t want to miss an opportunity to see the Rose, the site of the first Elizabethan theatre to be built in Bankside and the place where several of Shakespeare’s earliest plays premiered…

Southwark Cathedral continues a history of more than a thousand years during which religious buildings have occupied the same site on the south bank of London’s river Thames. Saxon foundations were discovered during an archaeological dig in 1999, The Domesday Book (1086) alludes to a monasterium (‘minster’) at Southwark, and this monasterium became the priory church of St Marie. Following a fire, the church was rebuilt by 1273; the present Cathedral is the earliest surviving Gothic building in London…

The first of Mad Shakespeare’s travel guides: visit the site of Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre, just 200 yards from the modern reconstruction, Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside in London.

Forget about running around town wearing stiff cotton and linen ruffs or cross-garters and tights, Shakespeare has the ability to inspire some of today’s best trends. Inspired by some of Shakespeare’s best works, I tinkered with my new obsession, Polyvore, to create several modern visual interpretations of his textual imagery…

Is there any connection between the engrossing television series LOST, created by J. J. Abrams, which just aired its final episode on May 23, 2010, and Shakespeare? The show is known for its many and varied, sometimes obscure, literary references, but it is not always clear whether Shakespeare is among them. Some of the following is mere guesswork and theories, but it proves to be, like the show itself, fascinating.

Carol Ann Duffy continues to revive the British Poet Laureateship in the wake of Motion’s (self-?) destructive tenure with the release of a poem celebrating the consequences of the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. When Mad Shakespeare saw that she’d invoked the spirit of England’s finest poet, we jumped on the chance to reprint it ourselves, as long, that is, as you also define ‘jumped’ as ‘published it five days after everybody else’. But hey, it’s Shakespeare’s probable birthday, so stop complaining and read on:
SILVER LINING
Five miles up the hush …

When was William Shakespeare born? We don’t actually know; birth certificates didn’t exist in the sixteenth century. We celebrate his birthday on April 23, but whether scholars and biographers got the date right is a matter for debate.
26 Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspeare (William son of John Shakespeare)Image credit: Flickr.com/usm photos
We know Shakespeare was born somewhere between the 21st and 25th of April, 1564. He was baptized in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. At the time, the English Prayer Book stipulated that baptism must occur no …

Once upon a time (446 years ago to be exact) a little boy called William was born in Stratford-upon-Avon to John and Mary Shakespeare. Although we have no documentary evidence of the exact date of his birth, it is generally celebrated on 23 April. Thus the commemoration of Shakespeare’s birthday coincides with St George’s Day: National Poet and Patron Saint are honoured on the same date. I have no intention of arguing whether or not the glover’s son from the Midlands wrote the plays and poems attributed to him, but would …

Six months ago, a group of graduate students at University College London sat down in the cafe of Foyle’s Bookshop on Charing Cross Road to talk about a new idea: an online Shakespeare magazine. We wanted to show on our website how Shakespeare is modern, relevant, and interesting. The site came online on October 7 2009, a little over a month after we’d finished our degrees. Now, six months later, we are spread out over the United States and the UK, and the website continues to grow.
In celebration of this …