Spoilers: The Life and Death of Jack Straw (Act 2, Scene 1)

Episode 107,   Oct 03, 2019, 08:20 AM

A Spoilery introduction to Act 2, scene 1 of The Life and Death of Jack Straw.

Spoilers: The Life and Death of Jack Straw (Act 2, Scene 1)
GOOSE ALERT - GOOSE ALERT
Jack Straw is not a long play, but that won't stop us going into ridiculous amounts of detail about it. Act 2, scene 1 is the scene everyone remembers. There isn't enough time in the world to discuss the moral complexity of this deeply intellectual scene. Okay, it's a bit of Pantomime business - but it's great and does tie in (vaguely) with the plot, whilst also giving the audience a bit of light relief. The scene is illustrated via a rough cut of our soon to be released full cast audio adaptation - which languishes in the edit as we post this.
The rough cut of Act 2 scene 1 to The Life and Death of Jack Straw is performed by Hugh Weller-Poley and is introduced by your host Robert Crighton.

BE WARNED - If you just want to listen to the play as a play, don't listen to the spoilers episodes. Come back later, or don't listen. However, if you find early drama hard to follow, then you will get a good grounding in the action here - especially as we may make changes or cuts for our final version! The plain text version is rough in hew, it will change and we produce it in part to hunt out errors. 
You can follow the text online - though some texts are better than others. There are, to our current knowledge, only two modern editions - the print on demand acting edition published by Groundling Press which can be found at their website http://www.groundlingpress.com/, and the almost impossible to get edition edited by Stephen Longstaffe (Mellen Critical Editions, 2002). 
Online versions exist - there is a copy of a fascimile at archive.org, which serves as a foundation https://archive.org/details/cu31924013324540/page/n9
Other online versions can and should be searched for. 
Support the podcast by going to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare and pledge something – or by leaving a review on itunes or whichever podcasting service you use. Or follow us on Twitter @BeyondShakes or check out our website at www.beyondshakespeare.org - you can even email us if you feel so inclined - admin@beyondshakespeare.org