Episode 119: Shakespeare in Love and the Queer World of William Shakespeare with Dr. Will Tosh

This week Dr. Will Tosh drops in to talk about the many complexities of Shakespeare's relationships, Shakespeare's role as a working writer, and the competitive landscape of playwrights of the time, along with Will's new book, Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare.

About our guest:

Dr. Will Tosh is interim Director of Education (Higher Education and Research) at Shakespeare’s Globe, where he is responsible for undergraduate and postgraduate course, events for adult learners, and the Globe’s scholarly research programme. Will researches and writes about the literature and culture of Shakespeare’s England, and his work at the Globe includes dramaturgy, new writing development, and public engagement in person, in the media and online.

Will holds degrees from the University of Oxford and Queen Mary University of London, and has worked at Shakespeare’s Globe since 2014. He developed the Research in Action format of public scholarly workshops, and helped to curate the Antiracist Shakespeare webinar series from 2021-24. He is the host of ‘That Is The Question’, the Globe’s award-winning YouTube series. Will is the co-director of the Shakespeare Centre London (based jointly at the Globe and King’s College London), and a mentor for the Early Modern Scholars of Colour network. He has served on the programme committee for the Shakespeare Association of America.

Will is the author of Playing Indoors: Staging Early Modern Drama in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (2018), and Male Friendship and Testimonies of Love in Shakespeare’s England (2016), which revealed the intimate social circle of the Elizabethan spy Anthony Bacon. His most recent book is Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, which was published to wide acclaim in 2024. Will writes and reviews regularly for academic journals as well as the Times Literary Supplement and other news publications.