Catherine Hull and Tudor Rickards
Conor Glean of the Royal Shakespeare Company helps us understand the pageantry of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, and how Shakespeare might have approached writing a play about the Queen’s life.
We interviewed Conor as a co-editors of the TudoRama newsletter the week following the royal funeral ceremonies in September 2022.
Conor approached his first Shakespearean roles at Stratford this year, after his work in the Royal Exchange theatre including his portrayal of Cassius Clay in One Night in Miami earned him national attention.
His current role is one of the two murderers in Richard 3rd, played as one of a pair of low-life cutthroats, with Northern accents. It leads him to reflect on the representation of villains and heroes in Shakespeare, drawing on his cultural Afro-Caribbean heritage.
This, he says, provides him with an additional lens through which to understand the outpouring of grief at the royal funeral, and perhaps a more nuanced understanding of cultural heroes both on stage and in British history.