In Shakespeare's plays, we see 6 total references to tennis. Polonius mentions an argument over a tennis game in Hamlet. Henry V and Pericles talk about tennis courts and there's even a couple of references to "tennis balls" showing up in Shakespeare's other plays, talking about them being played with at the game of tennis, as well as being stuffed as part of the process of making a tennis ball. We can tell that Shakespeare and his contemporaries knew about the game of tennis, but where did it come from? How was it played? Do we know anything about these tennis courts they used? To find out more about the history of tennis from Shakespeare's lifetime, today we're talking with Laurence Grove. Laurence is a Professor of French and Text/Image Studies at the University of Glasgow, and was recently the guest expert for an article inside PBS's report into newly discovered images that reveal some interesting new findings about the 16th century history of tennis. Laurence joins us today to share these findings, as well as to explain what tennis would have been like for Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's only reference to Easter comes up in Romeo and Juliet Act III when Mercutio talks about buying a new doublet for Easter. Despite only a single reference to this holiday, for the people of 16-17th century England, Easter was a major event. Holidays in Shakespeare's lifetime largely followed the life of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of Jesus that is celebrated on Easter Sunday was a high point of the year's festivities. Here today to share with us the customs, foods, and yes, the clothing like a new doublet, that would have been staples for the observance of the Easter Holidays in Shakespeare's lifetime, is our guest, and author of Reformation England 1480-1642, Peter Marshall.

In this episode of That Shakespeare Life, we explore the surprising presence of monkeys, apes, and baboons in early modern England and the role these animals played in the culture of Shakespeare's world. Shakespeare refers to primates dozens of times in his plays, and those references were not purely imaginative—exotic animals were arriving in England through global trade, kept as fashionable pets by elites, and even trained to perform tricks for public entertainment. By examining travel narratives, natural history books like Edward Topsell's The History of Four-Footed Beasts, and records of animal performances near the London theatres, we uncover how early modern audiences understood these creatures and why primates became such vivid symbols in Renaissance literature and stage culture.