Shakespeare’s early writings are peppered with the romantic tales of Hermia and Lysander, Rosalind and Orlando, Viola and Orsino. Stage productions abound; they are as popular and entertaining as ever in their depiction of love. But ask for thoughts on the world’s greatest love story, and I, like many others, will undoubtedly name none of [...]

Coriolanus. Asked to name one of Shakespeare’s plays, it’s probably not the first one that springs to mind. One of Shakespeare’s final tragedies, and perhaps one of his least well known, Coriolanus has just this weekend been released in cinemas, directed, co-produced and lead by stage and screen actor Ralph Fiennes. The film has a [...]

School education introduces Shakespeare and his contemporaries as texts to be read,  analysed and teased apart, and most university English programmes do little to move beyond this. So what happens when you are faced with performing the plays for the first time? There are many apparent obstacles: the trepidation of handling the language, the question [...]

Speaking to an old school friend about how young people are introduced to Shakespeare showed just how difficult and uninteresting she had found him during her younger years. Being a long-time lover of Shakespeare I began to ponder that frequently-asked question: how can Shakespeare be accessed by young people in a way that is exciting, [...]