Harriet Walter is one of the world’s most accomplished Shakespearean actors, as well as a multiple Primetime Emmy Award nominee for her screen performances, which include Lady Caroline in Succession, Deborah in Ted Lasso, Dasha in Killing Eve, Lady Shackleton in Downton Abbey, and Clementine Churchill in The Crown.

Her decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company have seen her play most of Shakespeare’s leading women. Despite her immense admiration for Shakespeare’s mind, words and empathy for his female characters, the fact remains that his women rarely take centre stage, have far fewer lines, and their function in the plot is solely in relation to a man.

So began a project that would become She Speaks!: What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said. In it, she imagines in ‘Shakespearean’ verse and prose what, with more lines and stage time, we’d have heard the Bard’s leading women say.

What did Gertrude long to say about her husband (Hamlet)? Why did Lady Macbeth feel she deserved to be Queen (Macbeth)? What did Juliet's nurse feel after Juliet’s death (Romeo & Juliet), and how did Olivia’s crush cause her to question her sexuality (Twelfth Night)?

She sits down with Jennifer Ward-Lealand to discuss her brilliant career, reflect on a life embedded in Shakespeare’s work, and perform her fresh takes on his women’s words.

Supported by Platinum Bold Patron Anna Gibbons.