Beyond Shakespeare

This is a discussion on boys companies, who popped in and out of the public consciousness in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Dr Harry R. McCarthy has written about boys companies in the period, as well as their recreation today, so was an excellent guest to chat about the trends of the boys company world. Dr Harry R. McCarthy is Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at Exeter, and has published Boy Actors in Early Modern England and Performing Early Modern Drama Beyond Shakespeare: Edward's Boys with Cambridge University Press. His research centres on early modern theatre, the body in performance, and premodern childhood. He is particularly interested in boy actors on the early modern stage (the topic of his first two books) and is currently developing a project on the intersecting concepts of whiteness and childhood in the early modern period and its literature. Our patrons received this episode in April 2023 - approx. 6 months early. The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become