'Shakespeare’s Villains' is a series of blogs by Finding Shakespeare, in coordination with our education team. Some of Shakespeare’s most exciting characters are villains; we have chosen ten of the most interesting to us to look at over the coming weeks. This week we are considering Shylock.
The Access and Interpretation Coordinator, Anna Griffiths, is in the Museums Collections Stacks at the Shakespeare Centre looking at a 19th Century Staffordshire figure of Shylock as played by William Charles Macready, a famous actor of that period.
So Shylock may be a controversial choice in a ‘villains’ series, as many productions have shown him as more of a victim. Discover images of how Shylock has been represented on stage in our Flickr album, and don’t forget to check out yesterday’s blog at Blogging Shakespeare for a more considerations of Shylock’s character.