Philip Marvin, a former Financial Times and Reuters journalist, has run a wide variety of Shakespeare workshops for over 25 years. Working quietly outside the mainstream he has given talks and taken study groups in the light of a spiritual background and training begun some 40 plus years ago centred on the non-dualistic philosophy of India, also echoed in other traditions.

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His approach, among other things, involves looking at Shakespeare in terms of different levels of meaning and exploring how certain disciplines can help create the conditions for anyone to penetrate beyond the outer forms of the plays and poetry. This can result in the discovery of what can only be described as an immediate and direct spiritual dimension.

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While scholarship is valued, the deeper possibilities and insights that these works contain is at the core of his exploratory approach. Exacting textual study is matched with dramatic enactment and performance as and when appropriate. But the transformational power of simple hearing and precise attention has proved to be extraordinarily revealing for many under his guidance.

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For a decade between 2000 and 2010 he ran a highly successful series of annual 'A Day with Shakespeare' events in which scholarly discussion and spiritual insight were combined in a programme that included dramatic excerpts by professional actors of specific scenes from the play under discussion. These attracted over 200 people from all walks of life. Cicely Berry the legendary voice coach of the Royal Shakespeare Company was one speaker, for instance. Philip also, for many years ran smaller study groups mainly from his home looking at both the plays and the sonnets.

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Following the success of past Shakespeare retreats in Puglia, Italy, a further retreat is taking place in June 2024 covering King Lear. If interested contact through the email below.

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In 2020 he launched a free five week Zoom course on the sonnets in return for donations being made to the Captain Tom Moore walking fund for the NHS. More Zoom courses took place - another on the sonnets, as well as one on Macbeth. Zoom courses continued into 2022/23. Richard II was followed by Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, Henry V and Julius Caesar. Audio recordings of these courses are available - see RESOURCES page. In October 2022 a new Zoom course on The Merchant of Venice took place. Also in 2022/23 he gave talks for the Fintry Trust and The Centre for Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred.

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His first performance project under the banner of 'Eye to I Productions' was due to take place in October 2021, but again due to the Corona Virus was cancelled. Instead, a film project, Love in Eternity, was instigated and completed - the TRAILER for this can be viewed on the PRODUCTIONS page, with a Youtube link to the film available on the RESOURCES page.

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He studied at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon and is passionate about the unique, practical, transformational possibilities Shakespeare's plays and poetry can provide for groups and individuals.

 

For him, Shakespeare's oceanic consciousness and fine intelligence channelled through the measured sounds and rhythms of his poetry, has the power to awaken the soul. Practical benefits from engaging in his works naturally follow in terms of heightened awareness, finer attention and increasing confidence in speaking and communicating with others. Shakespeare's mirror up to nature goes deep offering key psychological insights and emotional clarity and release. It is rooted in a profound wisdom and insight. His works, through 'entertainment' are pathways into profound self-knowledge.