Early Modern

Box Office Bears and 1623 Theatre are in pursuit of Shakespearean bears. Although we don't often connect Shakespeare and bears now, everyone in Tudor or Stuart England would have known or encountered a bear, and they made a fair few memorable cameos in the period’s drama. You may have heard about the bear sweeping across the stage in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale: 'Exit pursued by a bear'. At this event we'll be staging and exploring these kinds of moments in Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights, including a devil who disguises himself as a bear, an old man who turns into one, and a sexy hero who first attracts his girlfriend by showing off his ability to fight a bear. Join the Box Office Bears team and 1623 actors for a playful and thoughtful exploration of Shakespearean (and others’!) bears as we enter their playworlds, performed by, or as, a bear, returning to a time when bears fundamentally shaped popular entertainment during this period.

An exhibition on bears is being held at the University of Nottingham Museum of Archaeology from July 8th to December 31^st 2023.

What did pet dogs look like and how were they described?  Although the idea of a “pet” does not quite exist in this period, this list contains detailed descriptions of a wide range of Elizabethan dogs owned by men and women of the age.

Two months ago, I had the privilege of travelling with some early modern bear bones from Oxford to Nottingham. These bear bones were found during excavations by MOLA in Southwark in London, and were analysed for zooarchaeology and isotopes in Nottingham, before being taken to Oxford to be sampled for ancient DNA analysis.