Hester L-J
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starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Hester L-J
@starcrossed2018.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.2K following 2.4K posts
Shakespeare, slowly #SlowShakespeare (currently: #MoonMad); editing (2GV for Arden, ongoing), introducing (R&J, Cambridge, 2023), writing (Textile Shakespeare, Oxford, 2025) & Very Short Intro to the Histories (currently). Teaching in Cambridge (Catz) 🇳🇿
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starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · Nov 11
Today is the OFFICIAL publication day for TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE! Please indulge me: I want to say a little (perhaps rather a lot) about it and share my acknowledgements - and a discount code! Appropriately,🧵1/10
The cover of a book. Title reads TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE. The illustration shows black embroidery of flowers, fruit, animals and insects on a stained cream ground.
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Egeus: you've stolen my daughter! #MoonMad
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Brook's Dream @the-rsc.bsky.social 1970; the white box of Sally Jacobs's set. Hermia (Mary Rutherford) kneels, with Egeus (Philip Locke), Demetrius (Ben Kingsley, blue) & Lysander (Christopher Gable, orange) 📸Reg Wilson
A photograph of a play in performance. The stage has a white floor and walls, with two doors at the rear. A man wearing a long black sleeveless robe over a white shirt stands centre stage, with a woman in white kneeling in front of him. Two young men, both wearing white trousers with coloured silk shirts, one blue, one orange, are standing to the side. Other people, wearing long white silk robes, are crouching at the front of the stage or standing on a gallery above at the back.
January 4, 2026 at 11:00 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
The world is mad but theatre is good & Headlong's Midsummer Night's Dream at the Wanamaker is ice-cool & interesting & clever (esp about the darkness of ballet, oh the shiver of white tights) & while I may not entirely endorse the last 5 minutes (if you know you know) it's well worth seeing 1/2
A play in performance - people wearing black tutus; most of them are standing around a piano but one is dancing at the front of the stage, which is covered in shiny white
January 3, 2026 at 7:25 PM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
A love triangle: enter Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Hippolyta (Gwendoline Christie) looks on with concern, as Egeus and Hermia plead before Theseus, in the @bridgetheatre.bsky.social Dream (the 2019 production), dir. Nick Hytner.
A photograph of a play in performance. A woman wearing a long grey dress with long sleeves and a grey veil stands inside a glass box on a green stage; her hands are clasped and she looks worried. There is a similarly dressed younger woman standing with her back to the camera, watched by two men in black suits with black ties. The audience are standing around the stage.
January 3, 2026 at 10:30 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Theseus: Athens WILL rejoice! make it so! #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Theseus (Nicholas Jones) and Hippolyta (Josette Simon) in the 1999 @the-rsc.bsky.social Dream, dir. Michael Boyd des. Tom Piper (this might be the end of the play, not the first scene??)
A photograph of characters in a play. A man with a shaved head, wearing a long white coat over white trousers and shirt, with a pale blue cummerbund, stands close to a woman wearing a one-shouldered blue dress. Her hair is swept up and she is holding a small white flower in her hands.
January 2, 2026 at 11:14 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Theseus: we're getting married! soon but not soon enough! Hippolyta: *thrilled* #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
The (London transfer) poster for the great 1970 @the-rsc.bsky.social Dream, dir. Peter Brook. It changed theatre; my parents saw it & we had the poster...
A theatre poster. Main text reads RSC in A Midsummer Night's Dream. There is a cast list at the bottom of the poster. The main graphic is a circular design of faces with punky hair, as if a kaleidoscope; the circle is divided into 8 segments, each in 2 colours (green/black, red/yellow) each with a face.
January 1, 2026 at 11:42 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Well I still haven't finished the thing I wanted to get sent off before Christmas, and I'll never even attempt inbox zero, but I have just, fleetingly, achieved ironing basket zero, so, ring out the old, I guess...
December 31, 2025 at 8:30 PM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
5 sleeps until my next #SlowShakespeare blog, starting 1 January💫 #MoonMad 🌙 (how many times will I see Dream in 2026? one booked already; doubt that I'll pass 2025's 8 Hamlets or adaptations thereof though...) (why no donkey emoji why)
starcrossed2018.bsky.social Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · 16d
I can't do a poll, but I can make an executive decision, so🥁🥁🥁
I'll be starting my EIGHTH #SlowShakespeare daily blog on 1 January: #MoonMad aka Midsummer Night's Dream. Because we could all do with some laughs & a bit more fairy-dust right now...
(Gwendoline Christie as Titania at the Bridge, 2019)
December 27, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Reposted by Hester L-J
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
I can't do a poll, but I can make an executive decision, so🥁🥁🥁
I'll be starting my EIGHTH #SlowShakespeare daily blog on 1 January: #MoonMad aka Midsummer Night's Dream. Because we could all do with some laughs & a bit more fairy-dust right now...
(Gwendoline Christie as Titania at the Bridge, 2019)
December 19, 2025 at 12:30 PM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
I can't do a poll, but I can make an executive decision, so🥁🥁🥁
I'll be starting my EIGHTH #SlowShakespeare daily blog on 1 January: #MoonMad aka Midsummer Night's Dream. Because we could all do with some laughs & a bit more fairy-dust right now...
(Gwendoline Christie as Titania at the Bridge, 2019)
December 19, 2025 at 12:30 PM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
starcrossed2018.bsky.social Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · 28d
SO. Shall I start another #SlowShakespeare blog in the new year?? the daily writing itch needs scratching, it turns out. It could be #MoonMad? #InArden? or whatever?? thoughts? interest??
A still from a film. A smouldering young man with a neat little beard wearing a floppy shirt showing lots of his chest, looking smoulderingly to his right as if thinking very hard, with a quill pen, its nib inky, poised by his smouldering red lips. His fingers are inky too.
December 10, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Hester L-J
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
SO. Shall I start another #SlowShakespeare blog in the new year?? the daily writing itch needs scratching, it turns out. It could be #MoonMad? #InArden? or whatever?? thoughts? interest??
A still from a film. A smouldering young man with a neat little beard wearing a floppy shirt showing lots of his chest, looking smoulderingly to his right as if thinking very hard, with a quill pen, its nib inky, poised by his smouldering red lips. His fingers are inky too.
December 7, 2025 at 11:08 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
SO. Shall I start another #SlowShakespeare blog in the new year?? the daily writing itch needs scratching, it turns out. It could be #MoonMad? #InArden? or whatever?? thoughts? interest??
A still from a film. A smouldering young man with a neat little beard wearing a floppy shirt showing lots of his chest, looking smoulderingly to his right as if thinking very hard, with a quill pen, its nib inky, poised by his smouldering red lips. His fingers are inky too.
December 7, 2025 at 11:08 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Joining in the enthusiastic reposting of this beautiful Stoppardian story & adding that, 15 years ago, this was me, having the systemic adjuvant chemo, before the surgery & the radiotherapy & more chemo & a decade of drugs. My surgery anniversary's next week; forever grateful to @cuh.nhs.uk 💙
harrywallop.co.uk Harry Wallop @harrywallop.co.uk · Dec 2
Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard
December 2, 2025 at 10:38 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Stoppard. DAMN.
November 29, 2025 at 5:19 PM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Cambridge people! Do you like Shakespeare? Do you like material culture? You can hear me talking about BOTH in the Henn Lecture @stcatharines.bsky.social, 1 December, 5.30pm. There will be a reception after the lecture to launch Textile Shakespeare; info here
www.caths.cam.ac.uk/about-us/new...
The cover of a book. Text reads TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE, the image shows black embroidery of plants and animals on a stained cream linen background.
November 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Today is the OFFICIAL publication day for TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE! Please indulge me: I want to say a little (perhaps rather a lot) about it and share my acknowledgements - and a discount code! Appropriately,🧵1/10
The cover of a book. Title reads TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE. The illustration shows black embroidery of flowers, fruit, animals and insects on a stained cream ground.
November 11, 2025 at 11:21 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Fortinbras: no words... EXEUNT. FINIS. THE END.
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
And so it ends... Branagh carried off, and in his coffin in the 1996 film; Andrew Scott in a publicity image for the Almeida production in 2017.
A colour still from a film: a young man wearing a white singlet with black straps, his arms bare, is being carried on the shoulders of soldiers with bare heads, wearing grey greatcoats. HIs arms are outstretched and his head is hanging down. There are similarly dressed soldiers forming a guard of honour, with rifles in their hands. A still from a film. A young man with blond hair and a moustache is lying with his eyes closed in a pale satin-lined coffin, set on snowy ground. He is wearing elaborate black military-style uniform and has a sword held in his hands. A colour publicity image for a play. A young man with dark hair, wearing a black top with a colourful image of flowers on the front, is lying in what looks like a white-satin-lined coffin. His eyes are open and he is staring up. There are white gladioli lying on his torso and white gypsophila on the coffin. It's lit in blue and looks slightly surreal.
November 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Lovely to be at the last performance of Romeo a Juliet by Theatr Cymru in the Wanamaker last night. Sweet, clever (of course the boys bring the Mari Lwyd to the Capulet party) & a treat to see Steffan Donnelly's production in a space he knows so well. I have not a word of Welsh but it didn't matter.
A photograph of characters in a play. A young woman with long dark hair wearing a long white dress is smiling happily at a young man who is wearing a leather jacket. He has his hands around her waist and she has her hands on his shoulders; they are resting their foreheads on each other. A photograph of a play in performance. With a metal gallery behind, curving metal staircases leading up to it on either side, there's a party in progress, dancers with torches and wearing masks. In the front there's a young man wearing black kneeling on the ground; he has a mask like a goat's skull and is holding a horse's skull in his right hand, with long red and green ribbons hanging from it.
November 9, 2025 at 10:40 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
This is the PENULTIMATE POST in #InkyCloak a #SlowShakespeare Hamlet blog which began on 1 October 2024 and has continued daily (with a week off at Christmas and one day in February when the server was playing up). The last lines of the play tomorrow; how will it all end?
starcrossed2018.bsky.social Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · Nov 8
Horatio: we'll do as you say, Fortinbras
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Fortinbras (Mbulelo Grootboom) looks at Hamlet (Vaneshran Arumugam); Claudius (John Kani) seated, Horatio (Adam Neill) on the right, in the 2006 Baxter Theatre Company production dir. Janet Suzman @the-rsc.bsky.social
A photograph of a play in performance. A young man wearing pale combat trousers and brown combat boots, with a white t-shirt, is looking down at a young man wearing dark jeans and black top, apparently dead on the floor. There is another young man apparently dead face down to the side, wearing blue, and an older man slumped in one of 2 seats on a small round dais, and a further body partly covered to one side. A young man is standing off to the side on the right, covering his mouth with his hand.
November 8, 2025 at 4:11 PM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Horatio: we'll do as you say, Fortinbras
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Fortinbras (Mbulelo Grootboom) looks at Hamlet (Vaneshran Arumugam); Claudius (John Kani) seated, Horatio (Adam Neill) on the right, in the 2006 Baxter Theatre Company production dir. Janet Suzman @the-rsc.bsky.social
A photograph of a play in performance. A young man wearing pale combat trousers and brown combat boots, with a white t-shirt, is looking down at a young man wearing dark jeans and black top, apparently dead on the floor. There is another young man apparently dead face down to the side, wearing blue, and an older man slumped in one of 2 seats on a small round dais, and a further body partly covered to one side. A young man is standing off to the side on the right, covering his mouth with his hand.
November 8, 2025 at 10:56 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Fortinbras: I'm taking charge
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Branagh included Fortinbras (Rufus Sewell) being crowned in his 1996 film. It's all drawing to a close; what disappears from the page at this point, to some degree, are the dead, but on the stage, that's where the eye rests...
A colour still from a film. A young man wearing a grey army great coat over a shiny steel breastplate is sitting down as on a throne; there are three men in similar grey uniform standing behind him, their heads out of shot; the man in the centre is placing a gold crown on the seated man's head.
November 7, 2025 at 10:22 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Horatio: I can explain!
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Horatio (Nicholas Farrell in Branagh's 1996 film) is charged with telling the story of Hamlet, by Hamlet, in what sounds like Hamlet's own words: carnal, bloody, unnatural. #InkyCloak #SlowShakespeare ends on Sunday just shy of 400 posts!
A closeup of a character in a film. Head and shoulders, a young man with neat collar-length hair and a moustache, looking solemn, with red-rimmed eyes. He's wearing a fancy pink and green tweed coat, with a high white shirt collar and a red and gold cravat.
November 6, 2025 at 10:04 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
English Ambassador(s): excuse me?
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Do the English ambassadors have the hardest job? post-Stoppard, 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead' lands differently & anyway who cares?? Here's Rupert Goold's mad tilting Titanic @the-rsc.bsky.social 2025 because why not??
A photograph of a play in performance. The stage is tilting down and forward like the deck of a sinking ship; there is a matching tilting boarded ceiling above, and tossing grey green waves behind. Dimly lit, people are lying on the ground, sliding down; one young man wearing a pale shirt is standing with a rapier in his hand.
November 5, 2025 at 10:01 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Enter Fortinbras, with QUESTIONS
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Fortinbras has often been cut (although not in the *many* versions I've seen recently); Branagh staged it as a kind of invasion in his 1996 film (if you've got all those extras, why not??)
A still from a film. A grand interior with a black and white marble floor and a central strip of red carpet, with a gallery above. There are people lying on the floor as if dead, and others standing around in shock; there are also many soldiers in long grey coats pointing rifles.
November 4, 2025 at 9:09 AM
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Horatio: goodnight, sweet prince...🥲
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
I do love Horatio, the best of Shakespeare's many friends... Stephen Dillane as Horatio in Hamlet, dir. Zeffirelli, 1990. Also, Milton liked this bit (of course he did, the angels❤️) in the @freelibrary.bsky.social folio.
A colour still from a film. Dimly lit, head and shoulders, a young man with quite messy collar length hair and a dark top is looking down at something out of shot. He looks very sad. A passage from an early modern printed play text. Text reads. Hora. Now cracke a Noble heart: Goodnight sweet Prince, And flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest, Why do's the Drumme come hither? There's a wiggly black ink line in the right margin.
November 3, 2025 at 10:31 AM