In this episode I suggest if you could define Shakespeare in one word that word might possibly be – stoic.

I think the philosophy comes closest to what guides the plays is because of the most famous phrase associated with stoicism – memento mori: remember you must die.

At this point I make a joke about memento mori that’s my favourite in the entire 17 episodes to date, which probably means no one else will like it. Anyway it comes around four and a half minutes in so you decide.

There are four main strands of stoicism, Number one: Wisdom.

There’s no shortage of characters in Shakespeare for whom wisdom is the best definition. People, often women, whose lives are shaped by the actions of others, but who admit the reality of the choices they have to make. Accepting life as it is, rather than how they might want it to be.

These are not the big beasts, the flawed characters who lend their names to the titles of the play. They tend to be the people who hold up a mirror to those egotistical heavyweights and show them the error of their ways. For every self-obsessed Lear there’s a generous Cordelia, every scheming Macbeth has a well-adjusted Banquo and every jealous Othello has a trusting Desdemona.

Number two: Justice.

In this section I talk about a man I’ve barely mentioned, if at all, up until now – Fortinbras Probably one of the least known but most stoic characters in the whole of Hamlet.

Like Hamlet, he wants to avenge the death of his father. Who was killed, as bad luck would have it, by Hamlet’s father. But that was in good old-fashioned honest combat. Not like Hamlet’s, poisoned by his own brother, who then went on to marry his own mum. No wonder Hamlet’s struggling to make sense of his own future.

He’s a man of action, unlike Hamlet who is a man of thoughts.

So far it’s been all about supporting actors. Why are some of the best known stoics merely footnotes in the great works?

Part of the answer comes with virtue number three – courage.

Courage is often about standing up to authority. And here’s a thing you may have noticed, authority, what we might call a king for example, doesn’t like it when someone stands up to them.

Stoics focus on performing the task right in front of them to the best of their ability, rather than fretting about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow. Antony, at the funeral of Julius Caesar. Isabella in Measure for Measure, who has to find a way to save her own brother without having to sleep with the corrupt deputy leader Angelo.

Number Four – Temperance.

Prospero, in the Tempest, is an old man who has come to understand the rewards of patience.  In practical terms, we’re talking about self-restraint, modesty and propriety.

He’s found the right moment to bring together his old enemies and loyal friends, they arrive shipwrecked on his island, where he practises his magic. He’s seeking vengeance for the evil done to him by King Alonso and his brother Antonio. 12 years he has waited for this moment

Prospero has shown great patience here, but what’s he going to gain from all this. What about courage? And wisdom?

Now that I’ve got you here, Prospero says, d’you know what, I forgive you all.

Spoken like a true stoic. He knows he hasn’t got long to live, and this is going to be how he will be remembered. Memento mori.

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Top podcaster Tim McIntosh, host of The Play's The Thing, talks about how we can all learn to love Shakespeare, especially after bad experiences at school. We both admit we initially found Shakespeare dull and inaccessible when taught as literature in classrooms. Our lightbulb moments came through performance. Tim says watching film versions such as Hamlet and Othello first showed him Shakespeare’s energy, but acting scenes himself truly transformed his understanding. Memorising and physically performing the lines made the text come alive in a way silent reading never had.

Tim believes that Shakespeare is often taught incorrectly. He argues teachers approach the plays as if they were novels rather than scripts meant for actors and audiences. Instead of students sitting silently analysing text, Tim believes they should be on their feet, speaking the lines, reacting to each other, and treating Shakespeare as active theatre. Try it yourself! Do it with a friend!

Tim describes several practical techniques he uses in teaching. One of his most effective exercises removes students’ fear of embarrassment: he asks everyone to perform lines “as badly as possible.” Students mumble, overact, shout, and exaggerate deliberately. By the fourth repetition they have already absorbed the text and become less self-conscious, making real performance much easier. This creates a classroom “culture of performance” where everyone participates together rather than worrying about looking foolish.

Another important aspect of his teaching is blocking — the physical positioning and movement of actors on stage. Tim explains that the distance between characters fundamentally changes the emotional meaning of a scene. Two people shouting from opposite sides of a room create a completely different atmosphere from two people speaking quietly shoulder to shoulder. He wants students to experience Shakespeare physically, not just intellectually.

I always try and keep out of the 21st century but here we are discussing a scene that's like the start of so many rom coms, here's another scene that could have been lifted directly to be the plot for Indecent Proposal. Tim argues Shakespeare originally belonged to lively, unruly popular entertainment rather than the “gilded” reverence surrounding it today. Audiences at the Shakespeare's Globe were active participants, much like modern comedy crowds.

This chat reminded me of the effect real proper acting had on me when I had to'do' anger. Tim shows how so many scenes highlight Shakespeare’s fascination with conflicting value systems, power, honour, ambition, and human weakness.

By the end, Tim’s core message is clear: Shakespeare becomes meaningful when treated as living drama rather than sacred literature. If people simply try performing the plays aloud with others, he believes “they’ll fall in love — there’s nothing they can do about it.”

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Shakespeare understood the irrational nature of love centuries before modern neuroscience explained it. Using examples from Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It, we see how falling in love makes people behave foolishly because powerful brain chemicals temporarily override logic and self-control.

Romeo’s sudden switch from obsessing over Rosaline to worshipping Juliet demonstrates how attraction can shut down rational thinking. Modern neuroscience explains this through surges of dopamine, norepinephrine, and reduced serotonin, creating obsession, euphoria, impulsiveness, and emotional dependency. Shakespeare instinctively captured these effects long before scientific terminology existed. Why else would Romeo want to be a glove touching Juliet’s cheek, the weirdo.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, magical love potions symbolise the chemical chaos of attraction. Characters fall instantly and irrationally in love, showing that desire often has little to do with logic or compatibility. Similarly, plays like Antony and Cleopatra and Twelfth Night portray powerful people acting immaturely, obsessively, and destructively under love’s influence.

Shakespeare is aware of the terrible negative power of unrequited love, jealousy, and emotional confusion, suggesting that rejection intensifies irrational behaviour because stress hormones disrupt clear judgment. Across his works, love is portrayed not as a perfect ideal but as a biological, emotional, and social force capable of both comedy and tragedy.

But he's not a complete misery guts when it comes to love. Genuine love develops when people move beyond fantasy and obsession. In As You Like It, characters learn to accept each other realistically, flaws included. Shakespeare suggests that time, self-awareness, and emotional honesty—not infatuation alone—are what transform foolish passion into lasting love.

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Today we're looking at bullying through the lens of Shakespeare’s plays, which show how bullies often attack a person’s self-worth rather than simply exerting power. Shakespeare, writing in the dangerous and politically volatile world of Elizabethan London, understood bullying both as personal cruelty and institutional oppression. Fellow playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd suffered persecution, torture, and even death, demonstrating how fear and intimidation shaped the creative world Shakespeare inhabited.

Examples of bullying in Shakespeare include Prince Hal who in Henry IV Part 1 uses mockery and humiliation to dominate others, especially Falstaff, while Feste in Twelfth Night encourages collective ridicule against Malvolio. Shakespeare’s most sinister bully, however, is Iago from Othello, whose manipulation, racism, jealousy, and gaslighting destroy lives. Even Hamlet is presented as a more complex form of bully, inflicting emotional cruelty on Ophelia while consumed by his own grief.

Bullies are often driven by insecurity, resentment, or feelings of inadequacy. Shakespeare’s genius lies in portraying them not as monsters, but as damaged and vulnerable people whose actions still cause immense harm. Quiet honesty and forgiveness may sometimes be more powerful than dramatic revenge.

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Revenge is a primal human impulse, a desire to close a perceived circle of wrongdoing that exists in every culture. While justice aims to restore balance impersonally, revenge is a personal, emotional pursuit of gratification through retaliation. This is dramatised in Shakespeare's works, which serve as a psychological blueprint for revenge's irrational escalation. In The Winter's Tale, King Leontes’s unfounded jealousy triggers a chain of destruction, demonstrating how suspicion alone can fuel the need for retribution. Henry V shows how a perceived slight (a gift of tennis balls) is used to justify horrific violence, framed as divine will, illustrating the performative, spectacle-driven nature of revenge that makes backing down impossible.

Along the way I get to talk about the slow-motion disaster of my own stand-up comedy career.

But it's not all laughs.

The drive for revenge often stems from profound humiliation, a social pain that activates the same neural pathways as physical hurt. In Othello, Iago's simmering resentment over a promotion and racial prejudice is served cold, meticulously manipulating Othello’s insecurities to destroy him. Conversely, Richard III presents a man who, feeling personally and physically aggrieved by the world, adopts villainy as a form of revenge against everyone he perceives as his superior. The cycle becomes most toxic when it becomes self-perpetuating, as in Titus Andronicus, where an initial act of religious retribution spirals into a grotesque, endless series of atrocities, each justified as payment for the last. Breaking the cycle requires rejecting the logic of "an eye for an eye." I try and explain and hopefully justify the idea that real strength lies not in emulating your enemy but in rising above negativity, understanding rather than hating, and focusing on living well. As Romeo and Juliet tragically shows, when communities are governed by reflexive feuds, everyone loses. The true answer may not be revenge, nor even justice, but the difficult, conscious choice to stop the cycle before it consumes all involved.

n eye for an eye." The closing message argues that real strength lies not in emulating your enemy but in rising above negativity, understanding rather than hating, and focusing on living well. As Romeo and Juliet tragically shows, when communities are governed by reflexive feuds, everyone loses. The true answer may not be revenge, nor even justice, but the difficult, conscious choice to stop the cycle before it consumes all involved.

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Why are we so obsessed with time? And why do we think we have so little of it? Shakespeare has an answer or two.

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What's holding you back in life? Shakespeare knows, and I'm here to tell you how to fix it.

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