Abigail Rokison-Woodall is Deputy Director of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. Her first monograph, Shakespearean Verse Speaking won the Shakespeare's Globe first book award. As well as writing a number of journal articles and chapters on Shakespeare and theatre, she has also published Shakespeare for Young People, Shakespeare in the Theatre: Nicholas Hytner and As You Like It: Language and Writing. She also works on the RSC's 'Signing Shakespeare', a project which has produced a series of resources and films for teaching Shakespeare's Macbeth to deaf children.
Sir Simon Russell Beale is the leading Shakespearean actor of his generation, having played King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Malvolio, Timon of Athens, Benedick, Falstaff, Prospero and Richard II in film and television over more than thirty years.