diff -r 4a2afda8f187 Lib/idlelib/PyShell.py
--- a/Lib/idlelib/PyShell.py	Sat Nov 02 18:50:53 2013 +0200
+++ b/Lib/idlelib/PyShell.py	Sun Nov 03 10:17:25 2013 +0200
@@ -1340,6 +1340,8 @@
             raise ValueError("write to closed file")
         if not isinstance(s, (basestring, bytearray)):
             raise TypeError('must be string, not ' + type(s).__name__)
+        if isinstance(s, unicode):
+            s = unicode(s)
         return self.shell.write(s, self.tags)