Skip to main content

Anonymous debate at ESU streamed live from London today

The Shakespeare Authorship Debate with Roland Emmerich at the English-Speaking Union (ESU) in London will be streamed live on the ESU website  beginning at 7:30 p.m. tonight, according to ESU events manager, Susan Conway. (2:30 p.m. EST, DST in USA)


Conway said 120 people will be in attendance and 20 names are on a waiting list for the program featuring Anonymous director Roland Emmerich, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust chairman Stanley Wells, trust education director Paul Edmondson, and Brunel University School of Arts head William Leahy who will debate the Shakespeare Authorship question. According to the ESU website the motion for debate is: "This House Believes that William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon wrote the plays and poems attributed to him."


The event is being held in conjunction with Sony Pictures, the ESU and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust at the ESU headquarters at Dartmouth House in London, UK. The event will begin with a reception at 7 p.m. tonight, June 6, 2011. The debate will begin at 7:30 p.m. London time, or 2:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Daylight Savings in the USA. The ESU website says there will be opportunity for audience members to ask questions and make speeches.


Conway said the event is being filmed by Sony Pictures, and she cannot confirm if copies of the film will be available for purchase, but will keep us informed. Conway said the streamed version will continue to be available on the ESU website.


The English-Speaking Union is an international charity founded in 1918 to promote international understanding and friendship through the use of the English language.


Comments about the debate after the event will be posted on Oberon. If you wish to submit a comment, send email to linda.theil at gmail.com.

Popular posts from this blog

Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project from the University of Guelph

  Quote from masthead of Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project This treasure trove of a site offers much to Shakespeare omnivores, not least of which is the Spotlight feature on Aboriginal adaptations of Shakespeare  . Here's a snippet from the main page introduction of the site: T h e  Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project   is the online resource for anyone interested in how Shakespeare's plays have been transformed and adapted in Canada. But it also contains a wealth of material that relates to all things Shakespearean. With the launch of CASP Version 2, we are pleased to expand the already ample offerings on the site. These include a significant increase in multimedia files; multiple new pages on new areas of research with an emerging focus on French Canada; a huge amount of special resources, including documents, books, scholarly articles, reviews, images, and the like; a literacy video game and perhaps the most comprehensive and intensely multi-mediated stud

Ros Barber's new Shakespeare authorship book out November 24, 2013

by Linda Theil Ros Barber's Shakespeare: The Evidence --The Authorship Question Clarified will be published Nov. 24, 2013. Info at  https://leanpub.com/shakespeare . Video promo for the book (above) is available on YouTube at Shakespeare: The Evidence. Promo material on the publisher's page says: Whether you are a firm believer that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, or suspect that he didn't, this book aims to enable readers to gain a more comprehensive knowledge of the problems at hand, clarify their thinking, and identify weaknesses in, and logical rebuttals to, the arguments of their opponents, as well as potentially strengthening their own. Ros Barber, PhD is the author of The Marlowe Papers (St. Martin's Press, 2013) that won the Hoffman Prize in manuscript in 2011. UPDATE 11/17/13 : A note published today by Ros Barber at  http://rosbarber.com/shakespeare-evidence/  says the first installment of the  Shakespeare: The Evidence  ebook will be published o

Lawler's LeFranc translation published

 by Linda Theil Frank Lawler, author of Behind the Mask of William Shakespeare In September, Oberon Zoom member Frank Lawler released Behind the Mask of William Shakespeare , his new translation and annotation of Abel Lefranc's Sous le Masque de William Shakespeare under the imprint of James Warren's Veritas Publications, LLC. Lawler generously agreed to share his thoughts about the work with Oberon readers. Oberon: What drew you to this enormous project? Lawler: Abel Lefranc's two-volume Sous le Masque de William Shakespeare was published in 1918 and 1919. The man was a brilliant scholar of literary history who, as a Frenchman, wasn't burdened with the entrenched English hagiography of the man from Stratford. A world-renowned expert on Moliere and Rabelais, he had academic credentials rivaling those of the greatest of the orthodox bardologists of the early Twentieth Century. Lefranc, however, thought the Stratfordian myth was ludicrous. Having spent most of his caree