Henry Bell reviewed #lockdownshakespeare for Shakespeare Bulletin – a digital resource he had used in his teaching during the pandemic which considered how the Southern Africa project showcased locations, accents and languages through self-taping and site choices enforced by the restrictions in movement surrounding the COVID-19 lockdowns.

This led to the Lockdown Shakespeare: Transnational Explorations, co-hosted by University of the Witswatersrand, Tsikinya-Chaka Centre and University of the West of Scotland where an international mix of scholars and theatre artists shared innovative, site-based Shakespeare digital practice.

In the audience was Ben Crystal who, after an audience member in Malawi offered to ‘take’ the audience with them into their rehearsal room, contacted Henry to establish a network that could share methods and practice with each other.

This became the Decentered Shakespeares Network, which was initially made up of: 

• Act For Change (Ghana)
• Bravespaces Creative India
• Cena IV Shakespeare Cia (Brazil)
• Ben Crystal, Creative Producer
• Henry Bell and Steve Collins, Lead Researchers

In late 2021, a series of initial process sharings and practical explorations were funded by the UWS research centre, Creative Media Academy (CMA). Here, the companies alongside Ben, Henry and Steve and students at UWS explored the relationship between site-based digital captures and language. Short extracts from Othello, Measure For Measure and Romeo and Juliet were filmed in Accra, Mumbai and Sao Paolo and the processes behind these digital creations shared throughout. 

A nascent method was formed out of a decentred collaborative approach, steered by the practice of Southern Hemisphere theatre makers. This methodology was then applied by Henry into teaching at UWS that saw films created by BA Performance students in Scottish English inspired by the work created in Brazil, Ghana and India.

The initial findings were written up by Henry and Steve in The Conversation and the network considered how to create a digital Shakespeare production which could develop methods of process and practice even further. The result was the 2022 production Pericles on the Seas which took scenes from Pericles to develop new and innovative approaches to the text.

In 2023, Henry and Steve presented their work on the decentering and decolonising Shakespeare at the Triennial Congress of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa’s Shakespeare Towards an End conference. Versions of these papers were published in the Journal of Shakespeare in Southern Africa and can be seen here. 

In 2025, Ben and Henry co-chaired the work of the DSN at the British Shakespeare Association Conference in York, UK. In line with the ethos of the network, the session was made up of four pre-recorded papers by members of the network, namely Neha Vyaso, Nii Kwartelai Quartey and Sam Houston, as well as Professor Christopher Thurman of University of Witwatersrand, filmed in their own locations in India, Ghana, Scotland and South Africa. 

Future activities of the network include a panel at the 2026 World Shakespeare Congress, a new digital production based in Verona, Italy and new practice taking place in Malaysia led by the most recent addition to the network, Viknendran Sivalingam.