Teacher CPD: Shakespeare's Comedy in Context

Professor Emma Smith explores the reception of Shakespeare in performance, print and criticism, and her book This Is Shakespeare (2019) was a Sunday Times Best Seller.

She has worked with theatre companies including at the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre and Donmar Warehouse, and is a regular speaker in schools, literary festivals, theatres, libraries and book groups, as well as universities. She has contributed to radio and TV programmes and written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Observer and The Guardian.

Michael Donkor studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, he undertook a Creative Writing Masters at Royal Holloway and a PGCE at the Institute of Education. 

He is a novelist too: His debut Hold (4th Estate) was published in 2018, longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, and shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. His second novel, Grow Where They Fall, was published by Penguin in 2024. Michael also reviews books for The Guardian, Independent, Times and TLS.

Will Tosh is Director of Education (Higher Education and Research) at Shakespeare’s Globe. He leads the Globe’s scholarly research mission with Lucy Cuthbertson. He teaches, writes and researches the literature and culture of Shakespeare’s England, and contributes to dramaturgy, new writing development and public engagement. He is the author of the acclaimed Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare (2024, winner of the Theatre Book Prize 2025). Will’s other books include Playing Indoors: Staging Early Modern Drama in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (2018), a study of performance in the Globe’s candlelit indoor theatre, and Male Friendship and Testimonies of Love in Shakespeare’s England (2016), which revealed the intimate social circle of the Elizabethan spy Anthony Bacon.