We’re delighted to feature in Season Two of Shakespeare For All three actors who starred in Game of Thrones. Click the audio links below for previews of some of their stirring Shakespearean performances and check out our Actors page for more information on their careers in theatre and Shakespearean drama.
Anton Lesser - (former Maester) Qyburn
Julian Glover - Grand Maester Pycelle
Donald Sumpter - Maester Luwin
How did Shakespeare’s plays inspire A Song of Ice and Fire? How do Shakespeare’s plays and Game of Thrones dramatize history, tragedy, and moral complexity in parallel ways? How can Game of Thrones teach us to be better readers of Shakespeare? This bonus course of ‘Shakespeare For All’ examines all these questions and more, through original interviews with actors, scholars, and fans, and performance clips from the show and the plays.
*Spoiler alert: these episodes discuss Game of Thrones Seasons 1-8 and contain major plot spoilers, as do linked articles. Click on images to visit the source. Images from Game of Thrones (c) HBO.
Episode One: “The Way They Were in the Songs”
Discover the real-life history that inspired Game of Thrones and Shakespeare’s history plays, and learn the distinctive ways in which Shakespeare and George R.R. Martin each transform history into art
Episode Two: “Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown”
Explore the moral tensions and dilemmas that Shakespeare and George R.R. Martin force their audiences to confront, especially in the storylines of their most notable political leaders
Episode Three: “Tongue nor Heart Cannot Conceive nor Name Thee”
Dive into the question of why audiences love Shakespeare’s plays and Game of Thrones so much, despite their depictions of prejudice and violence, and discuss the unique power of tragic art
Course Interviewees
Anton Lesser
Actor, Game of Thrones
This course features an original interview with Anton Lesser, who played Qyburn in Game of Thrones. Lesser is an English actor who has performed a wide range of roles on film, television, and the stage. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he is also well known for his roles as Thomas More in Wolf Hall, for which he received a nomination for the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor; as Harold Macmillan in The Crown; and as Chief Superintendent Bright in Endeavour. He is also an associate artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His many Shakespearean roles have included Hamlet, Troilus, Edgar, Petruchio, Romeo, Henry Bolingbroke, Brutus, Leontes, and Richard III. He has recorded extensively for radio and spoken word audio, including Paradise Lost, The Odyssey, and award-winning productions of the novels of Charles Dickens.
Jeffrey R. Wilson
Author, Shakespeare and Game of Thrones
This course also features an interview with Jeffrey R. Wilson, a faculty member in the Writing Program at Harvard University, where he teaches the Why Shakespeare? section of the University's first-year writing course. He is the author of Shakespeare and Game of Thrones (Routledge).
Wilson’s first book, Shakespeare and Trump, is available from Temple University Press. Focused on intersections of Renaissance literature and modern sociology, his work has appeared in academic journals such as Modern Language Quarterly, Genre, College Literature, Shakespeare, Mediaeval and Renaissance Drama in England, Law and the Humanities, Disability Studies Quarterly, Early Modern Literary Studies, Literary Imagination, and Crime, Media, Culture. His work has also been featured in public venues such as National Public Radio, The Chronicle of Higher Education, MLA’s Profession, New York Daily News, MarketWatch, Literary Hub, Academe, Public Seminar, The Smart Set, The Spectator USA, CounterPunch, and Shakespeare and Contemporary Theory. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Irvine. On Twitter @DrJeffreyWilson.
One of the unique things about Shakespeare’s plays and Game of Thrones is the way they bridge ‘high art’ and ‘low art’ - receiving tremendous critical acclaim while also enjoying mass popular appeal. To reflect that dynamic, this episode also features interviews with fans, whose engagement with the show reflects the uniquely intense following it has inspired around the world.
Reed Edwards
Show fan and maester-in-training of the history of Westeros and Essos
Peter Lucier
Student at St. Louis University Law School
Maria Devlin McNair
Episode writer and creator of ‘Shakespeare For All’
“My interest in A Song of Ice and Fire began in college. Surprisingly, not with my Accounting major, but when my hallmate, who had just received his copy of A Dance with Dragons, recommended the first book to me. Since that day, I have consumed the content of the world of Westeros and Essos in nearly every format imaginable. I have completed the core series once over in both print and audiobook (redundant, I know) and have added many of the ancillary texts by Martin, including A World of Ice and Fire and Tales of Dunk and Egg. None of this including the inordinate amount of time I’ve spent on the fan-curated online encyclopedia A Wiki of Ice and Fire, which I highly recommend to anyone looking to stress test their best Thrones theories, such as ‘Was Tyrion actually a Targaryen?’ As for the show, I used to maintain the tradition of re-watching all preceding seasons, before the release of the new season in spring. Though I’ll admit, by seasons 7 and 8, the 60-70 hours of TV watching became somewhat incompatible with maintaining a full time job.”
Thoughts on this course? Send us your comments!
Course Credits
This course features sound clips from HBO’s Game of Thrones and from BBC Two’s The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III, Luke Treadaway as the Earl of Richmond, Hugh Bonneville as the Duke of Gloucester, Sally Hawkins as the Duchess of Gloucester, and Sophie Okonedo as Queen Margaret. This course also features the following performances from Shakespeare:
In episode 1:
Samuel West as Brutus, presenting in the Intelligence Squared debate Shakespeare vs. Milton: The Kings of English Literature (2014)
In episode 2:
Marlon Brando as Antony in Julius Caesar (1953)
Kenneth Branagh as Henry V in Henry V (1989)
Patrick Stewart as Claudius in Hamlet (RSC/BBC Two, 2009)
In episode 3:
John Gielgud as King Lear in King Lear (BBC 3 Radio Drama, 1994)
David Morrissey as Richard III, from ‘Shakespeare Solos’ by The Guardian (2016)
Laurence Olivier, John Hurt, and Colin Blakely as King Lear, the Fool, and Kent in King Lear (1983)
Tom Hiddleston as Coriolanus and Deborah Findlay as Volumnia in Coriolanus (the Donmar Warehouse, 2013)
Patrick Stewart as Claudius in Hamlet (RSC/BBC Two, 2009)
“The Wooden O and the Iron Throne” was written by Maria Devlin McNair. Narrator is Zachary Davis. Original music is by Jack Pombriant.