Lunchtime Lectures: Shakespeare's Objects: Understanding the Off-Stage Lives of Early Modern Stage Props

Catherine Richardson is at the V&A South Kensington on Thursday 22 October for a lunchtime lecture on Shakespeare's Objects, the book she published as part of a series of 'Insights' guides designed to sit alongside the latest Arden editions of Shakespeare's plays. The talk looks at the objects chosen to accompany the plays and how they illuminate Elizabethan and Jacobean material culture and daily life, and how the V&A's own collections informed the book. It's a chance to hear about the physical things that populated the early modern stage and what they tell us about the world around them.

Richardson is a scholar of early modern material culture, both on and off stage, and of the history of the creative industries. She ran the AHRC-funded Cultural Lives of the Middling Sort project from 2019 to 2024, and her recent publications include A Day at Home in Early Modern England, 1500-1700, written with Hamling and published by Yale, Ephemera from Routledge, and an edition of Arden of Faversham from Bloomsbury. This lecture is part of the V&A Academy's free Lunchtime Lecture series, so it's a good one to slot into a working day.

The talk runs from 13:00 to 14:00 in the Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre at the V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL. Entry is free, and while booking is recommended, it isn't essential.