How should we introduce children to Shakespeare? I ask because it’s Shakespeare Week in primary schools, a nationwide initiative that aims to introduce the under-11s to the plays of the man who is inevitably dubbed in the online trailers as “the world’s greatest writer”. That always makes me think of Robert Graves’ pithy observation that is always worth requoting: “The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”
When I was at school in the 70s we were always being told just how good Shakespeare was, but sadly we were presented with very little evidence for this as we spent long, weary afternoons slumped at our desks and reading King Lear and Hamlet out loud, mangling both sense and language. I’m inclined to agree with Mark Rylance, who has argued passionately against making pupils read Shakespeare and testing them on his plays in schools on the grounds that they were supposed to be performed and reading them was “the last thing the author intended”.
The teaching of Shakespeare in schools has become far livelier than it was in my day. There are plenty more resources. The RSC’s Live from Stratford-upon-Avon makes Shakespeare available free to every school in the country, with Love’s Labour’s Lost being broadcast into classrooms on 19 March. The Shakespeare schools festival understands that participation is a very good place to start.
I’ve sat amid school parties almost weeping with boredom at dull revivals of the plays. A really terrific production of a play can sweep away all the cultural baggage that weighs down Shakespeare, as well as the idea that the plays are hard to understand. A child I know once said, “Shakespeare makes me feel stupid” because of her experiences of Shakespeare at school. When I took her to see Titus Andronicus at the Globe, she realised that it was just as exciting as Game of Thrones – and slightly easier to follow.
The Globe has been particularly good at stripping Shakespeare of its high-culture connotations and making it accessible not just to children, but also adults whose school experience has left them feeling that Shakespeare makes them feel stupid. As Susan Elkin observed recently about the Globe’s educational project, when Shakespeare is done well young audiences engage with real enthusiasm.
There are many ways to cultivate that engagement. Starting young, as Shakespeare Week is trying to do with a programme of digital and downloadable resources for teachers, is one way to take the fear out of Shakespeare and allow ownership to take root. And the trailer for the WillShake Henry V Watchalong suggests that means not being prissy about Shakespeare and not trying to lock it up in a museum.
As the Unicorn’s Purni Morell has said: “I knew that when we staged Ignace Cornelissen’s A Winter’s Tale and Henry the Fifth that some people would say, ‘Why don’t you just put on Shakespeare’s plays? Why mess around with these cultural icons?’ But that’s the point. It’s about ownership of culture and in particular of iconic work. By staging them we are saying to an audience of eight-year-olds, you can mess about with art. It exists for you and you don’t owe it anything.” Henry the Fifth is at Edinburgh’s superb Imaginate festival in May before it returns to the Unicorn – and I can’t recommend it too highly.
One of the good things about Shakespeare Week is that it helps create familiarity with the plays at an early age. In my experience with my own children, familiarity is key, and if you prepare them beforehand that will enhance the experience. I’d love to know what has worked best for you – and what hasn’t worked at all – when introducing youngsters to Shakespeare.
