Benjamin McEvoy

Essays on writing, reading, and life

How to Adapt Shakespeare (A John Dryden Case Study)

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The word ‘adapt’ has its etymological root in the Latin ‘adaptare’, meaning ‘to make fit’. And today I’m going to attempt (or essay upon) how one might adapt Shakespeare, make his work fit, into the cultural, political, and historical context of their time. We’ll do this by looking at one of the most interesting adaptors of […]

How to Deal with Toxic People (Video)

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This isn’t a topic I talk about a lot (though I certainly had a rant or two during the Rumi Podcast) because I prefer to focus on what you want in your life rather than what you don’t want in your life. But it’s worth being said. Toxic people abound. And you need to be […]

The Jazz of Jack Kerouac

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In ‘Essentials of Spontaneous Prose’, Kerouac instructed the reader to ‘tap from yourself the song of yourself’. Just one of the many implications that Kerouac viewed the writer’s approach to prose and the approach to poetry as being the same. An idea that was reinforced in his ‘Belief & Technique for Modern Prose’, in which […]

Romantic Closet-Dramas: How to Revolutionise the Theatre

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I’ve been thinking a lot about theatre lately. The Stage reckons theatres won’t be back in business until 2021. That sucks when one of the reasons you’ve chosen to live in London is to increase your patronage of the theatre in hopes of learning the craft. But in this challenge lies opportunity. Reading Peter Brook’s […]

Philip Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings

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Books of poetry are like albums. You know that feeling when you dust off Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks and spend the afternoon reclining? Or that feeling when you run through the park on a crisp morning with Morrison Hotel in your ears? Or when you spend years waiting for an artist to drop a […]

The A-Level Study Habits of Oxbridge Students (Video)

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Another Oxford and Cambridge-related university question answered. This is a common question. Obviously your A-Level results are a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting an offer from these elite universities. The other pieces are the interview, the personal statement, and the entrance exam. Do well in all four, add a dash […]

How To Get Started (In Anything)

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So I’m putting together this lecture series. Several lecture series actually. One of them is an introduction to Shakespeare. And I want to cover every single Shakespeare play. That means a couple of introductory, hour-long, lectures followed by one on King Lear, then Othello, then Hamlet, then Much Ado. And so on. Plus there’s the […]

How To Write A Short Story In A Day

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You write a short story the way you read a short story. As quickly as possible. The best way to read a short story is to read it in one sitting.  Reading a short story in one sitting it easy enough. You typically only have one plot line to follow. You have a small range […]

Decades In Film: The 50s

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Becoming a fan of Brando and Dean in the formative years of adolescence left me with the indelible impression that the fifties was a rebellious age. The era was electrifying for so many reasons – Hitchcock’s pacy thrillers appealed to Cold War anxieties; Ford’s westerns were glorious and sprawling; Gene Kelly was singing in the […]

An American Prayer

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Have you ever grieved for someone who died before you were born? I have. On this morning’s run, spoken word poetry album An American Prayer (1978) in my ear, I grieved for Jim Morrison. Tears and all. If I were Jim Morrison, I would have died in a blood-filled Parisian Hotel bathtub ten months ago. […]