Fourth Course

In the early modern era when gluttony was frown upon both from both a moral and health perspective, why was Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff so popular? ​A corpulent man with a voracious appetite for food and drink he also is portrayed in the plays as being boastful, deceitful, lustful and cowardly. So why is Falstaff, a man who possesses so many reprehensible qualities, so endearing to theatre goers? Or is Falstaff misunderstood and, as Orson Wells put it, actually ‘a gloriously life affirming man’ whose ‘goodness is like bread, like wine’?

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Sam will be joined by Professor Emma Smith, Professor Ewan Fernie and historian Brigitte Webster to discuss whether Falstaff is a glutton or a gourmand.

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Professor Ewan Fernie

Ewan Fernie is Chair, Professor and Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham.   He was Director of the award-winning 'Everything to Everybody' Project, which revived the first great Shakespeare library in the world with people and communities across Birmingham and contributed to the Cultural Programme and Opening Ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.  His books include Shakespeare for Freedom, Shame in Shakespeare and the coauthored novel, Macbeth, Macbeth.  Ewan was an academic anchor for the BBC's flagship series, Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius, and is shortly to appear in a new Shakespeare television programme for Channel 4.

Professor Emma Smith

Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Tutorial Fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford. Her research combines a range of approaches to Shakespeare and early modern drama including the reception of Shakespeare in performance, print, and criticism, and about the scholarly and cultural investments in Shakespearean criticism. Emma has worked with theatre companies including at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she is Asssociate Scholar, National Theatre and Donmar Warehouse. She has also contributed to radio programmes and served as a consultant for TV and film, including most recently, BBC television's three-part series 'Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius' (2023). Her books include This Is Shakespeare (2019) and the forthcoming Arden 4 edition of Twelfth Night. 

Brigitte Webster

Brigitte Webster is a qualified teacher of home economics and history and author of Eating with the Tudors (Pen & Sword, 2023). As an experienced cook with a deep passion for Tudor history she fully immerses herself in archeological, experimental cookery and even grows fruit, vegetables and herbs from the period to achieve the most authentic end results. Brigitte is in the final stages of a Masters in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. She also runs the Tudor Experience, an exclusive Tudor and 17th Century themed immersion history retreat near Norwich in Norfolk.