Introduction : wearing the codpiece -- The king's many bodies : Fiona Shaw's Richard II (1995-96) -- Playing with contradictions : Kathryn Hunter's King Lear (1997) -- Gender in exile : Vanessa Redgrave's Prospero in The tempest (2000) -- Staging and subverting nostalgia : Dawn French's Bottom in A midsummer night's dream (2001) -- Vice-versa : all-female Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre (2003-04).