Ben Arogundade

With the World Shakespeare Festival underway in London, The Bard's most popular plays, Othello amongst them, are coming under renewed scrutiny. Since it was first performed by Shakespeare's theatre group, the King's Men, on November 1, 1604, scholars have debated the Moor's origins. Some argue that he is black, others...

Internet search statistics yield valuable insights into the things people are thinking about, and the questions they most want answered. I recently posted a blog about female celebrities with the most Googled hair in the world. The winner was Lady GaGa, with 40,500 global monthly searches.

There is...

William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon, on April 23, 1616 -- his 53rd birthday. His burial was recorded in the register of the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Five years prior, the playwright had returned home to Stratford after almost 20 years of success in London. He was taken seriously ill in...

Internet statistics are the new oracle. By tracking the words and phrases people around the world type into the browsers of their computers, search engines gain valuable insights into the things people are thinking about, and the questions they most want answered.

I was recently doing some research on...

William Shakespeare's character Othello is generally regarded as a black African. But is this true? Could he have been an Arab or a Spanish Moor?

With the World Shakespeare Festival just beginning in London, a myriad of interpretations of the Bard's work will be on show, including my book,

Supermodel Kate Moss has been the muse of artists Lucien Freud and Mark Quinn, in a tradition stretching back to the earliest models of the late nineteenth century. The association is an obvious one. The world's great beauties synergising with those obsessed with image.

Perhaps the most striking of...

Supermodels have never had it so good, and that generally includes the black ones, from Naomi Campbell to Jourdan Dunn. But how did things come to be this way? Indeed, how many black supermodels realise that they owe much of their success to the terrifying events of April 4, 1968,...

What do you get if run the works of Shakespeare through a computer program that randomises the dialogue, then reconstitutes it again in a different order? This was exactly the task I undertook in the gestation of my new eBook, The Shakespeare Mash-up.

Inspired by the mash-up's...

On September 15 at The Crucible theatre in Sheffield, England, two stars from the highly acclaimed HBO epic The Wire, will debut in Shakespeare's quintessential psychological drama, Othello. Clarke Peters (who played detective Lester Freeman) will feature in the title role, opposite Dominic West (detective Jimmy McNulty) as Iago.

The...

For the shopkeepers within London's Notting Hill Carnival area, riot preparedness is a routine annual affair. Ever since the first disturbance, back in 1976, each late August bank holiday sees the area's hippest fashion boutiques, from Paul Smith to Jade Jagger, erect temporary boardings to protect their shop windows from...

Originally entitled "The Moor of Venice," "Othello" was first performed by Shakespeare's theatre group, the King's Men on November 1, 1604, in the Banqueting House of London's Whitehall Palace. Today, over four hundred years later, it remains as popular as ever. Its central themes of racism, love, jealousy and betrayal...