糖心TV

Dr Sarah Olive, University of York

'Certain o'er incertainty’: eliding Troilus and Cressida’s ambiguity in the Lewis episode ‘Generation of Vipers’. 

R.A. Foakes argues that Troilus and Cressida opens up contradictory perspectives. The play might then appear an unusual choice for appropriation in Lewis, a detective drama drawing on the traditions of Golden Age crime fiction, particularly given the genre’s need for ultimate certainty to conquer initial ambiguity and for multiple possible meanings to give way to a single, fixed interpretation of ‘whodunit’. Yet, in appropriating the play, the episode stakes its identity as part of a richly allusive series. This article considers the history of Shakespearean appropriation in one long-running UK television franchise and the dilemmas facing its 2015 season.

Dr Sarah Olive is a lecturer in English in Education at the University of York. Her research is primarily concerned with Shakespeare’s afterlives, particularly the way he inhabits education and culture internationally. In terms of education, this ranges from his place in national curricula to the pedagogies used by theatre education departments. Sarah is particularly interested in the cultural appropriation and adaptation of Shakespeare by television, popular music and the novel.

Sarah is currently the Chair of the British Shakespeare Association’s Education Committee and edits the magazine Teaching Shakespeare.