Touring Shakespeare

Reveals how English Shakespeare companies were deployed to serve British diplomatic interests at the end of Empire.

Exploring the politics behind English Shakespeare's global dissemination throughout the mid-twentieth century, Touring Shakespeare reveals a wealth of new historical evidence informing current debates on Shakespearean soft power, globalisation, and decolonisation. Its will prove stimulating for researchers of Shakespeare and Cold War history alike.Drawing on a wealth of archival material, Touring Shakespeare reveals how English Shakespeare companies were deployed overseas in service to British diplomatic interests at the end of Empire and the start of the Cold War. In exploring the politics behind the global dissemination of Shakespeare performed by prominent English theatre companies like the Old Vic and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Jim Taylor examines whether tours supported, contradicted, or ran adjacent to the broader diplomatic objectives they served. Peeling back layers of production and reception history in such diverse locations as Egypt, India, Nigeria, and Australia, his study discloses how the British state came to regard Shakespeare tours as an effective compensatory device for its loss of economic and political power overseas, and how the global Shakespeare myth was driven by British cultural institutions between 1939 and 1965.