For the seventh episode of Let’s Talk Shakespeare, I asked “Was Shakespeare Gay?”. This is a really big question that people have written a great deal about, so this episode acts as a sort of summary of some of the arguments for and against Shakespeare being gay. To answer this question we have to think about the nature of friendships and sexuality and self identification of those thing in Shakespeare time, as well as looking at evidence from this text, in particular the sonnets.

This weeks guests are:

• Professor Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute


• Dr Elizabeth Dollimore, Outreach and Primary Learning Manager a the SBT


• Professor Stanley Wells, Honorary President of the SBT


• Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre

You can find the show notes for this episode over on our blog: https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/podcast/was-shakespeare-gay/