The “question“ is whether the Bard penned his works, or if they were composed by other hands.
Dromgoole, who is also the author of Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life (2006), will be talking to Dr William Leahy of Brunel University, convenor of the world's only Master's degree in Shakespeare Authorship Studies. Their conversation, “Will, the Question and Me,“ is the closing event in the series, on Thursday, November 27.
Dr Leahy said: “The lecture series will give the public a chance to hear the discussion for themselves at first-hand, and to participate in this thought-provoking debate.“
The 2008 Silberrad Memorial Lectures, presented by The Shakespearean Authorship Trust and Brunel University, in West London, will take place every Thursday throughout November, at the Globe Theatre, Bankside, in London.
The opening talk, on November 6, will be by John Michell [sic], author of Who Wrote Shakespeare (1996), speaking on “Who Wrote Shakespeare? The Candidates and their Promoters.“ He will be summing up the evidence for and against the different claims for the real Shakespeare.
Social psychologist Professor Sandra Schruijer of the University of Utrecht will be looking at the nature of the debate itself, in “Fighting over Shakespeare's Authorship: Identity, Power and Academic Debate,“ on November 13.
Author-actor Hank Whittemore will be performing a 90-minute one-man show, on November 20, based on his scholarship of the Sonnets, published in The Monument (2006), which explicates the 154 poems as a “barely concealed diary“ detailing events from the 1601 Essex rebellion, the death of Elizabeth I and the succession of King James in 1603.
Tickets: Globe Box Office 0207 401 9919. Programme:. Thursdays, November 6, 13, 20, 27, at 7.30pm. £10 per lecture, £18 for two, £27 for three, £35 for all four. Free glass of wine. (www.shakespeareanauthorshiptrust.org.uk)
Notes to Editors
For further information, contact the Brunel University Press Office, 01895 265585.