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shakespeare unbard

a podcast in which joel fishbane explores each of Shakespeare's plays, offering tidbits, trivia, and revisionist interpretations of all those plays they made you read in school.

Ranked #1

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Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 26: That Play About Iago, otherwise known as The Tragedy of Othello

Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 26: That Play About Iago, otherwise known as The Tragedy of Othello

Robust and endlessly versatile, Othello has rightly remained one of Shakespeare's most popular tragedies. We spend the e... Read more

20 Jul 2017

21mins

Ranked #2

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Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 17: Is "The Merry Wives of Windsor" a prequel to the Henriad or just Shakespearian fan fiction?

Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 17: Is "The Merry Wives of Windsor" a prequel to the Henriad or just Shakespearian fan fiction?

If anyone in Elizabethan times wrote Shakespearian fan fiction, it probably looks a lot like The Merry Wives of Windsor.... Read more

12 Feb 2017

16mins

Ranked #3

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Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 27: Spoiler Alert: All's Well That Ends Well Does Not Actually End Well

Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 27: Spoiler Alert: All's Well That Ends Well Does Not Actually End Well

Interpreters of All's Well That End Well often play it as a romantic comedy, but this is an impossible task. The main ch... Read more

1 Aug 2017

25mins

Ranked #4

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 02. Is The Taming of the Shrew as sexist as they say it is? Spoiler Alert: Yes.

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 02. Is The Taming of the Shrew as sexist as they say it is? Spoiler Alert: Yes.

Bernard Shaw, whose opinions on Shakespeare are too much fun not to quote on a daily basis, called The Taming of the Shr... Read more

12 Aug 2016

25mins

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Ranked #5

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 10. The underrated masterpiece that is Richard II

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 10. The underrated masterpiece that is Richard II

Richard II is one of Shakespeare's greatest works and if it was put in the Colosseum with King Lear or Hamlet, the odds ... Read more

29 Oct 2016

35mins

Ranked #6

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Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 18: Benedict and Beatrice Steal the Show in Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 18: Benedict and Beatrice Steal the Show in Much Ado About Nothing

The prototype for every warring would-be lovers who have ever followed, Beatrice and Benedict tower over Much Ado About ... Read more

26 Feb 2017

21mins

Ranked #7

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 07. Titus Andronicus: A Slasher Film Before There Were Slasher Films

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 07. Titus Andronicus: A Slasher Film Before There Were Slasher Films

Horror is not a popular genre for theatre or for Shakespeare, but he tackled it in Titus Andronicus and, if taken from t... Read more

25 Sep 2016

19mins

Ranked #8

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 11. There's nothing timeless about Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 11. There's nothing timeless about Romeo and Juliet.

Despite popular opinion, there is nothing timeless about Romeo and Juliet - and the lovers are the least interesting par... Read more

12 Nov 2016

25mins

Ranked #9

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 08. No plot, no villains, no happy ending? No problem. It's Love's Labours Lost.

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 08. No plot, no villains, no happy ending? No problem. It's Love's Labours Lost.

Love's Labour's Lost is a play with no plot, no villains, and no happy ending - and yet the play has such a charming pre... Read more

2 Oct 2016

22mins

Ranked #10

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 04. Adultery! Witchcraft! Pirates! Or as Shakespeare liked to call it: Henry VI Part II

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 04. Adultery! Witchcraft! Pirates! Or as Shakespeare liked to call it: Henry VI Part II

While Henry VI Part II is an improvement on its predecessor, Shakespeare still wasn't able to conquer the problem he enc... Read more

28 Aug 2016

18mins

Ranked #11

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Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 15: What's Shakespeare's best play? It's Henry IV Part One

Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 15: What's Shakespeare's best play? It's Henry IV Part One

Henry IV Part One sits as a touchstone in Shakespeare's career, his first glorious success and the means by which we can... Read more

7 Jan 2017

26mins

Ranked #12

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 06. Richard III: the Man Who Would Be King

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 06. Richard III: the Man Who Would Be King

After nearly half a dozen plays of dubious merit, Shakespeare finally found his legs in this story of the hunchbacked ma... Read more

18 Sep 2016

28mins

Ranked #13

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Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 23: What is Twelfth Night? It's what you will!

Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 23: What is Twelfth Night? It's what you will!

One of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, Twelfth Night - otherwise known as What You Will - has a largely festive atm... Read more

17 Jun 2017

21mins

Ranked #14

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Shakespeare Unbard Episode 12: How do you solve a problem like Helena and other questions about A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare Unbard Episode 12: How do you solve a problem like Helena and other questions about A Midsummer Night's Dream

How do you solve a problem like Helena? In Episode 12 of Shakespeare Unbard, Joel Fishbane discusses the good and the ba... Read more

26 Nov 2016

25mins

Ranked #15

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Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 20: Julius Caesar has a really bad day on the Ides of March

Shakespeare Unbard, Episode 20: Julius Caesar has a really bad day on the Ides of March

The central relationship of Julius Caesar is a masculine one: it is the dissolution of the friendship between Brutus and... Read more

2 Apr 2017

30mins

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