Mad About Shakespeare

Friday 29th – Sunday 31st May 2026

Mad About Shakespeare is a compelling weekend of performances, conversations and film exploring the theme of madness in Shakespeare’s plays.

Curated by Nick Hutchison and taking place at Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall and Aldeburgh Cinema from Friday 29th to Sunday 31st May, the festival raises funds for Second Stage, a pioneering charity creating training, support and employment pathways into the theatre and live events industry for people leaving the criminal justice system.

For tickets and more information please go to www.madaboutshakespeare.co.uk

Full weekend ticket: £100 / Individual event ticket prices shown below.

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Lear’s Shadow 

Friday 29th May, 7.30pm 

Tickets: £25 available HERE

A 70-minute one man adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear devised and performed by Colin Hurley.

A man in a dressing gown shuffles in, carrying a box.  From the box he pulls the objects, people, quarrels, wrongs, jokes, mistakes, laughter and regrets that add up to a life.

Over the next seventy minutes, he retreads the path that brought him here – to This Great Stage of Fools: the loss of his daughters, the loss of his knights, the loss of his fool, the loss of his wits… oh, and the storm.  Don’t forget the storm.  When The Rain Came.

Using only Shakespeare’s words (reordered, repurposed, and often repeated), Lear’s Shadow is a mischievous, engaging reflection on Shakespeare’s great domestic tragedy.

Content Warning: this piece contains vivid depictions of Very Poor Parenting.

Suitable for ages 16+

‘A superb one-man performance… Throughout the 70-minute performance, Hurley captivates’ ★★★★ Theatre and Arts Review

‘Hurley’s performance is a tour de force… He engaged with the audience brilliantly’  ★★★★ North West End

‘Hurley delivers a surprising, irresistibly human and comic Lear. This is more an ordinary man with a man’s vanities and vulnerabilities, yet there is an air of decayed nobility about him … Lear’s Shadow is a consistently engaging distillate of Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy. It may come from behind the weighty tragedy, but it throws light onto its darkness.’ British Theatre Guide

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In Conversation with Sir Jonathan Bate 

Saturday 30th May, 11am

Tickets: £18 available HERE

Shakespeare scholar and author of Mad About Shakespeare, Bate takes us from classroom, to theatre, to emergency room. Whether you’re falling in love, growing old, or losing your mind, if you are patient enough, Shakespeare will give you the words.

Jonathan Bate is a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, where he was formerly Provost of Worcester College, and Regents Professor of Literature at Arizona State University. He is well known as a biographer, critic, creative writer and broadcaster, and has authored award-winning biographies of William Wordsworth, John Clare and Ted Hughes, as well as many works on Shakespeare. He has a CBE for services to higher education and was knighted for services to literary scholarship.

Shakespeare’s world is never too different from our own – permeated with the same moments of tragedy or comedy, the same existential questions and ways of encountering each other. As he says, ‘the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together’. So, whether dealing with the death of a loved one, the mess of war, the experience of being schooled, or falling in love, of growing old, of losing your mind, if you are patient enough, Shakespeare will give you the words.

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A Midsummer Nights’ Dream – Aldeburgh Cinema screening with a live introduction by director Michael Hoffmann. 

Saturday 30th May, 2pm

Tickets: £12 available HERE

Twentieth Century Fox’s dazzling 1999 star-studded film, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, brings Shakespeare’s most opulent romantic comedy to life, full of mysticism and humour. Set deep in the heart of a lush forest, with an extraordinary cast of fairy kings and queens, their remarkable entourages, and two beautiful pairs of lovers, this lavish production is a visual extravaganza. Its all-star cast – Rupert Everett, Calista Flockhart, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer – was a box-office triumph.

Filmed on location in a stunning Tuscan setting, the screening also includes a live introduction by the director, Michael Hoffman.

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Regeneration Theatre presents Hamlet – The Play’s The Thing

Saturday 30th May, 7pm

Tickets: £25 available HERE

A thrilling 90-minute Hamlet performed by Mark Lockyer and Directed by Fiona Laird.

Revenge, suspicion and family intrigue light up the stage in this powerful, concise version of perhaps Shakespeare’s most personal play.

Expertly edited into a gripping solo performance, Mark Lockyer embodies the play and all its characters in a visceral production.

Age guidance 14+

Stay behind after the performance and join Mark, director Fiona Laird and psychiatrist Dr James Anderson for a discussion around the play and the theme of madness.

‘This production is extraordinary … leaves the watcher utterly spellbound’ Rufus Norris, Artistic Director, National Theatre

‘Soliloquies that make the skin tingle’ The Guardian

‘This production has remarkable potential as inspiration and motivator, but also as a therapeutic tool for those that are disadvantaged by education, mental illness, and societal circumstance – be it homeless or otherwise.’ Dr James Anderson, retired consultant forensic psychiatrist (HMP Belmarsh and Broadmoor Hospital). 

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She Speaks – What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said

Sunday 31st May, 11am

Tickets: £18 available HERE

Internationally acclaimed actor Dame Harriet Walter performs witty and insightful passages from her hugely successful book, giving voice to the women in Shakespeare’s plays too often silenced or marginalised.

Previously performed at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and on tour, this performance promises to be a fun and irreverent look at Shakespeare’s greatest heroines.

Dame Harriet Walter is a distinguished British actress known for extensive stage work with the RSC (playing male Shakespearean roles in all-female casts) and acclaimed TV and film roles in Succession, The Crown, Sense and Sensibility, and Atonement. She was awarded a CBE in 2000 and a Damehood in 2011 for her contributions to drama and is also the author of several books.

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Brunch with the Bard and Bednarczyk

Sunday 31st May, 1pm

Tickets: £22 available HERE

Finish the weekend in style with internationally renowned cabaret artist, actor, singer and pianist Stefan Bednarczyk, acclaimed for his role as Feste (the Fool) in Tom Littler’s 2024 Orange Tree Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Performing the role from a grand piano at the centre of the stage, he provided live – often improvised – musical accompaniment to the action.

Stefan will reprise this wonderful performance as drinks and nibbles are served, bringing the festival to a lively and celebratory close.

“Stefan Bednarczyk is in the same olympian bracket as Noel Coward and Victor Borge” The Sunday Times.