Adrian Lester on Playing Rosalind, Henry V, Othello, and Hamlet

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We could listen to Adrian Lester talk about acting all day… but he's a busy man, so we’ll settle for this 37 minute episode. The actor joins us to discuss some of his most famous performances, including Rosalind in Cheek by Jowl’s acclaimed 1991 all-male As You Like It, Hamlet with Peter Brook, and Henry V and Othello with Nicholas Hytner. Plus, Lester takes us back to his childhood in Birmingham and tells us about his patronage of the Everything to Everybody project and the Birmingham Shakespeare Library. Lester is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Visit our website, folger.edu/unlimited, to learn more about Everything to Everybody and see video of Lester's performance in "As You Like It." From our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 4, 2023. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today, one of the great contemporary Shakespeareans looks back at some of his signature roles,
0:05.7	including his breakout as Rosalind.
0:14.3	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:18.5	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folger director.
0:24.6	Adrian Lester performed the role of Rosalind in an all-male 1991 production of As You Like It by the company, Cheek by Jow.
0:29.6	He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but a part
0:33.6	off the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love.
0:36.6	It may be said of him that Cupidth has clapped him with a shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart.
0:40.5	Oh, pardon me, dear Rosalphabondon.
0:42.5	Nay, and you be so tarney, come no more in my sight.
0:46.0	I had his leaf be wooed of a snail.
0:47.8	Of a snail?
0:48.4	I, of a snail.
0:50.1	For though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head. That production toured the world and was revived a couple years later for another world tour.
0:59.0	His performance as Rosalind won Lester international praise,
1:03.0	and prepared him well for the role of Oliver in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation a decade later.
1:09.0	In between, Lester appeared in the first British production of six degrees of separation,
1:14.6	won an Olivier Award for the lead role in Sondheim's company,
1:18.6	and played Hamlet under the direction of Peter Brook.
1:22.6	Lester is also working to make sure more young people have access to Shakespeare's plays. His native
1:28.6	city of Birmingham, England, holds the world's earliest public Shakespeare collection at its library,
1:34.1	a fantastic resource for the people of that city. Birmingham is in the midst of a multi-year
	...

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