Shakespeare in the news | April 2026

A roundup of Shakespeare stories from the news this spring, including discoveries about his only London real estate purchase and some of his family papers; The Guardian’s ranking of Shakespeare’s plays as well as video games Shakespeare would love; and folks sharing Shakespeare, from soliloquies to sonnets.

A man of property: discovering exactly what Shakespeare owned

Scholar Lucy Munro’s discovery of an overlooked map has confirmed not only the exact location of Shakespeare’s only real estate purchase in London but even the layout and size of the house. Might The Two Noble Kinsmen have been written here? Munro writes about her discovery for the Times Literary Supplement:

Just inside the City of London, in the secluded streets once occupied by the monastic precinct of the Black Friars, is an unassuming warehouse building of the late nineteenth century: 5 St Andrew’s Hill. Since 2013, it has borne a dark-blue City of London plaque stating that “ON 10TH MARCH 1613 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE PURCHASED LODGINGS IN THE BLACKFRIARS GATEHOUSE LOCATED NEAR THIS SITE”. As the phrase “near this site” suggests, it has so far been impossible to pinpoint precisely the location of Shakespeare’s “lodgings”, and other aspects of its history have been obscure.

In March 1613, at the age of forty-eight, William Shakespeare did something that he had never done before: he bought property in London. He had worked in London for more than twenty years and already owned shares in the leases of two playhouses in the environs of the city, the Globe on Bankside and the indoor Blackfriars playhouse. His personal property transactions, however, had focused on his home town, Stratford-upon-Avon. This changed when he agreed to pay £140 to Henry Walker, a London minstrel, for a “dwelling house or tenement” a few streets away from the Blackfriars playhouse.

Did Shakespeare ever “lodge” in the Blackfriars house, as the plaque at 5 St Andrew’s Hill suggests? Some have argued that in March 1613 he was not yet ready to retire to Stratford, and that he meant to use the house for himself; others have contended that he bought it purely as an investment. The evidence is equivocal. In 1616, when he died, Shakespeare was renting the house out to a man named John Robinson, but his intentions in 1613 are less clear. The copy of the indenture signed by Shakespeare originally included a clause specifying that William Ireland’s lease of the property from Henry Walker was due to run for twenty-five years from December 25, 1604. But this clause was scored through, and it does not appear in the other copy of the indenture. It is therefore possible that Ireland’s lease was surrendered during negotiations over the sale, and that Shakespeare bought the house with the intention of living there. We know he was in London in November 1614, when his friend Thomas Greene consulted with him about business in Stratford. Was he using the Blackfriars house? Or had other factors—illness, perhaps, or the fire that devastated the Globe in June 1613—already pushed him to withdraw from London and rent it out?

Shakespeare may or may not have “lodged” in his Blackfriars house, but we can now say with confidence that the blue plaque is not merely “near” its site, but on the very spot.

Learn more about Shakespeare’s purchase of the Blackfriars Gatehouse on Shakespeare Documented 

Reconsidering Shakespeare’s family history with new findings about the “Spiritual Testament” 

“In 1757, a bricklayer found a religious document hidden in the rafters of the Shakespeare House in Stratford-upon-Avon, England,” writes Popular Mechanics. “Historians have long attributed the document, which was signed, ‘J. Shakespeare,’ to William’s father, John.

“But a study in Shakespeare Quarterly, from scholars at the University of Bristol, claims John wasn’t actually the writer of the scrutinized document. Instead, the researchers say it was William’s relatively unknown younger sister, Joan Shakespeare Hart, who is mentioned by name in only seven surviving documents from her lifetime.”

Shakespeare’s plays ranked

Antony and Cleopatra? Exhausting. Lear? Magnificent but flawed. Hamlet? Limitless. So says Michael Billington, the Guardian’s retired theater critic, in a ranking of all Shakespeare’s plays. Agree? Disagree? The accompanying photos are a veritable Who’s Who of some of the UK’s most loved Shakespearean actors!

Video games Shakespeare would have loved

Josh Broadwell’s list for Polygon list can also help you pick a game based on your favorite Shakespeare play.

“Three things theater directors have taught me about how groups come alive”

Group Life’s strategist and facilitator Priya Parker talks with directors Chloé Zhao (Hamnet) and Saheem Ali (Shakespeare in the Park) about how theater games can help engage any group and change the dynamics.

Late Night Shakespeare

Denzel Washington. Dame Judi Dench. Tom Hiddleston. Sir Patrick Stewart. Sir Ian McKellen. Billy Crystal. The Graham Norton Show celebrated Shakespeare’s birthday with scenes of celebrities performing Shakespeare—sonnets, soliloquies, and scenes—from the show. “These stars prove Shakespeare is alive and well… on our sofa!”

Meanwhile… On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Don Cheadle shares Cassius’ speech from Julius Caesar: “Men at some time are masters of their fates.”

One great poem to read today: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 28

Drew Broussard, writing about Shakespeare for Literary Hub, notes that “it is in the deep cuts and the less-popular stuff that we can really see just how spectacular he was… like this most relatable entry: Sonnet 28, ‘How can I then return in happy plight…’ Who among us hasn’t felt like both the day and the night were conspiring against us, in different but equally frustrating ways?”