As a latecomer to Game of Thrones, I am struck by how many people tell me it is “very Shakespearean”. Because it is presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and staged by Dominic Cooke, who memorably directed The Hollow Crown on television, we shall doubtless hear the same arguments about Game of Thrones: The Mad King at Stratford. … Harmony Rose-Bremner as Lyanna Stark and Michael Abubakar as Eddard Stark in Game of Thrones: The Mad King. Photograph: Johan PerssonBut there are two other reasons why the use of tropes from the Stratford playwright doesn’t make a play Shakespearean. Of course, they could do something even more radical than ransack the library shelves for work that is supposedly “Shakespearean”.