The Blind Cupid Shakespeare Company has teamed up with Quarantine Kids Storytime to produce short form audio dramas of Shakespeare's plays. This collaboration aims to deliver classical content made accessible to young audiences and those new to the Bard. Each play will be performed by a talented array of international actors. The stories presented are adaptations by Charles and Mary Lamb. You can view the cast list here.
Audiobook collaboration
From April 10th, two plays will be released each weekend, on Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm GMT respectively, running for 10 weeks until June 13th. The audio dramas will be available to stream via Quarantine Kids Storytime's YouTube Channel. In the hope of reaching as many audiences as possible, and making Shakespeare's work accessible, the content will be available to listeners for free. For those who can afford to, donations can be made here.
About Charles and Mary Lamb
Mary Ann Lamb was born in 1764 and passed away in 1847. Her brother, Charles Lamb, was born in 1775 and passed away in 1834. The two of them were born in London.
Mary was a writer who suffered from severe mental illness. After suffering from a mental breakdown that resulted in the death of her mother in 1796, she spent the rest of her life confined to mental facilities. Few knew about her struggles with mental health until after she passed away. Her brother declared that she was "remarkable for the sweetness of her disposition, the clearness of her understanding, and the gentle wisdom of all her acts and words”.
Charles Lamb was 11 years younger than Mary and was a poet, essayist and antiquarian. Aside from Tales from Shakespeare, he is best known for his work on Essays of Elia. Alongside his sister, they collaborated in writing three books, Tales from Shakespeare being the most successful. He was also deeply interested in highlighting Shakespeare’s contemporaries, compiling extracts of old playwrights and dramatists under the title Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets Who Lived About the Time of Shakespeare.
The two of them were widely respected in their own literary circles, which included peers such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Hazlitt. Blind Cupid is honoured to share their work.
Quarantine Kids
Quarantine Kids Storytime's ethos encourages everyone to find solace, relaxation and escape into another world using the power of words and divine intervention when needed, whether through classical texts in the public domain, original writing the team does in house, or by getting permission to read from authors that are still in copyright.
Read more about Quarantine Kids and the excellent work they do on their website.
