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Telegraph
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Academics want to ‘decolonise' Stratford-upon-Avon, but the town remains gloriously unchanged
My hands are sticky with strawberry ice cream, so I wipe them on my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt while someone blathers on about a bloke called William Shakespeare. I'm in a strange town with marauding swans, a lazy river, and a stone bridge that glows in the decadence of mid-summer. Colourful narrowboats float on a listless canal while cars trundle up streets lined with crooked Tudor buildings. You can't move for badly dressed Yanks clutching camcorders. It's a memory – probably an unreliable one – that visits me every so often; a happy, hallucinatory flashback of a childhood trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. Now I'm back, 30-something years later, reassured that nothing much has changed. The marauding swans are still here, the river still lazy, the Cotswold stone still glowing. The Americans are nowhere to be seen, mind. Yes, it's audibly quieter here these days. Well, sort of. Stratford has found itself at the centre of a row over a project to 'decolonise' Shakespeare's birthplace. As is the fashion these days, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which looks after properties associated with the Bard, has tasked itself with examining the role that Shakespeare's work – and objects in its care – have played in promoting Anglocentric and colonialist thought. The aim being to create a more inclusive museum experience. It's an undertaking that sparks fervent debate on the streets of Stratford this Friday afternoon. 'Anglocentric? How many of his plays are set in sodding Italy?' sighs tour guide Joe Rukin, who I meet at the top of Sheep Street for his 'sinister walking tour of Stratford'. 'It seems unnecessary; we should just celebrate his work.' Something about Stratford made me lean into the cliché of olde England – its macabre myths and legends – so I signed up to Rukin's excursion into the town's dark heart. 'The scariest thing we'll encounter is what falls out of Wetherspoons,' he quips. Shakespeare, he says, stating the obvious, lived long before British colonialism took off. In fact, England was disentangling itself from foreign influence, as it broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation. 'Shakespeare's baptism was recorded in Latin, but his burial was recorded in English – and he had a lot to do with that shift,' says Rukin, cutting an imposing figure in his top hat and tails, a creased shirt poking out of a roguish leather waistcoat. 'He made English fashionable again.' Unconstrained by spelling pedantry, Shakespeare (or Shaxberd, Shappere and Shakspere, depending on his mood), introduced an estimated 1,700 words to the English language, including gossip, fashionable and rant, not to mention my wife's name, Imogen. He was a prolific phrasemaker, too. 'Vanish into thin air', 'one fell swoop' and 'cold comfort' are among his many gifts. But the Bard may not have enjoyed such an enduring legacy were it not for one man. Rukin points his skull-capped cane towards a black and white building, home to The Garrick pub. It's named after the iconic 18th-century thesp David Garrick, hailed 'ye best Actor ye English Stage had produc'd' by then prime minister William Pitt the Elder. Garrick's most enduring legacy, however, was reviving interest in Shakespeare almost 150 years after the Bard's death, turning his Stratford birthplace into a kind of Shakespeare Disneyland. 'He brought Shakespeare back to Stratford and is probably the person to thank for all these tourists,' says Rukin, as sightseers walk by. 'We're not long after the Reformation at this point. Shakespeare was absolutely used to create a new English identity.' That identity was exported to the colonies. But while Shakespeare spoke the language of the occupiers, he also gave voice to the oppressed, as local stagehand Nick Dobson, who I bump into on Sheep Street, points out. Indeed, Shakespeare's plays, which platform the marginalised, have been adapted by writers and directors around the world to speak of contemporary struggles. The Chinese – hardly effusive advocates of the British Empire – love the Bard so much they're building a replica of his hometown in Fuzhou. 'I studied Shakespeare – I love his love stories – and I said to my husband 'take me to the Shakespeare place',' says Mani Cupta, a tourist from Uttar Pradesh, India, who I find outside Shakespeare's birthplace with her obliging husband Gary. 'I like it very much here. It's beautiful, very quiet.' Not on Rukin's tour it's not. In his booming voice he rattles off some local ghost stories as we walk towards New Place, Shakespeare's final home. Only it's not there. Its subsequent owner, one Reverend Francis Gastrell, razed it in a fit of rage in 1759, because he was fed up with tourists coming to visit. A commemorative garden has been planted in its place. More than 400 years after his death, Shakespeare continues to support a thriving cottage industry of scholarly speculation; a maddening morass of contradictory academia that struggles to answer some of the most basic questions about the Bard. Like how he died. One romantic tale persists: that he popped it during a drinking binge to celebrate his birthday – a true writer's exit. We do know that he's buried at the Holy Trinity Church, or rather most of him is – his skull is missing, assumed stolen by grave robbers. 'A church in Worcestershire claimed to have it for a while, but it turned out to be that of a 70-year-old woman,' says Rukin, as we stand in the church grounds, birdsong and pollen in the air. The tour winds up near Bancroft Gardens where the Stratford Canal meets the River Avon. It's a picture of quintessential Englishness. Families eat ice cream amid blooming chestnut trees and scavenging swans, while theatregoers trickle into the imposing Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The smell of chips wafts from Barnaby's Fish Restaurant while a street entertainer plucks a guitar. 'Don't worry about the swans,' says Rukin, as the birds waddle towards us. 'Tamest swans in the world, these. They get fed chips their entire lives. However, the geese are buggers.' A feeling of contentment washes over me in Bancroft Gardens. I've succumbed to the serenity of Stratford. And I'm not the only one. 'I could sit here for hours,' says Mark Scott, who's watching the world go by with his Yorkshire terriers Tiffany and Suzy, while wife Mandy fetches ice cream. Scott, an HGV driver from Bloxwich, Walsall, is here celebrating his 61st birthday. He comes often. It's his happy place. 'There's no care in this country anymore,' he sighs. 'I see litter everywhere. It upsets me. That's why I come here. I like going to places that make me feel good.' So do I, so I head to the Dirty Duck (AKA the Black Swan), a pretty, waterside pub claiming to be the only one in the land trading under two names. Even the boozers here have alter egos. Inside, a dalmatian sits on a stool at the 'Actor's Bar', while a French tourist drinks wine amid photos of stars who have supped in the tavern. Dame Judi Dench, Dame Helen Mirren and John Lithgow among them. I have a swift one before walking over to the charming Attic Theatre for an intimate production of The Tempest, a play widely interpreted as an allegory of colonialism and colonial liberation. It ends with the famous line: 'As you from crimes would pardoned be, yet your indulgence set me free', addressed directly to the audience. It's a plea for redemption from the reconciliatory tyrant Prospero, and it melts away into raucous applause like ice cream on a summer's day.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Exhibition looks at how Shakespeare began to write
Curators are putting together an exhibition that aims to show people how William Shakespeare came to write his plays. The exhibition, called Becoming Shakespeare, opens in Stratford-upon-Avon later this month. It has been described as a look at the influences that helped to shape the dramatist when he was young, and what inspired him to create his work. Rachael North, chief executive of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, said it would focus on the playwright's "formative years". She said visitors would be able to "feel a personal connection to the beginnings of his extraordinary journey". Bradley Wynne, creative director at Sarner International, which has been working on designs for the exhibition, said Shakespeare's Birthplace, in the Warwickshire town, was "one of the most literary heritage sites in the world". The exhibition opens on 24 May and organisers said prebooking was recommended. The Shakespeare's Birthplace website describes how the bard was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. His father was a glove-maker, holding civic positions in the town, which meant he was likely to have sent his children to the local grammar school. The young writer would have lived with his family at their Henley Street house, until he turned 18. He then married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than him and already pregnant when they tied the knot. Experts have said it is a mystery how he got to London, but by 1592 his reputation in the capital was established. His success made him "considerably wealthy" and he went on to buy the largest house in the borough of Stratford. Researchers now believe Shakespeare spent more time in Stratford than previously thought, lodging in London and dividing his time between his hometown and the capital, in what could have been a two or three-day commute. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. Letter reveals Shakespeare did not abandon his wife Rare copy of famous Shakespeare love poem found Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: Who was William Shakespeare?
BBC News
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Stratford-upon-Avon curators ask how Shakespeare began to write
Curators are putting together an exhibition that aims to show people how William Shakespeare came to write his exhibition, called Becoming Shakespeare, opens in Stratford-upon-Avon later this has been described as a look at the influences that helped to shape the dramatist when he was young, and what inspired him to create his North, chief executive of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, said it would focus on the playwright's "formative years". She said visitors would be able to "feel a personal connection to the beginnings of his extraordinary journey".Bradley Wynne, creative director at Sarner International, which has been working on designs for the exhibition, said Shakespeare's Birthplace, in the Warwickshire town, was "one of the most literary heritage sites in the world".The exhibition opens on 24 May and organisers said prebooking was recommended. The Shakespeare's Birthplace website describes how the bard was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in father was a glove-maker, holding civic positions in the town, which meant he was likely to have sent his children to the local grammar young writer would have lived with his family at their Henley Street house, until he turned then married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than him and already pregnant when they tied the have said it is a mystery how he got to London, but by 1592 his reputation in the capital was success made him "considerably wealthy" and he went on to buy the largest house in the borough of now believe Shakespeare spent more time in Stratford than previously thought, lodging in London and dividing his time between his hometown and the capital, in what could have been a two or three-day commute. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘You have to be taken inside Poirot's brain': Ken Ludwig on the secret to adapting Agatha Christie
If you ever face a quiz question about the most performed theatre writers in the world, likely to have a play on somewhere every day, William Shakespeare, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Agatha Christie are all reliable answers but a fourth may surprise you: Ken Ludwig. He also has intriguing connections with the other three. The popularity that made the American wealthy enough to have donated £1m to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is partly due – apart from his own much-revived comedies, Lend Me a Tenor (1986) and Moon Over Buffalo (1995) – to Christie. Ludwig's 2017 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express has had hundreds of productions and is currently touring the UK. We meet when he is in London for a workshop on a second Hercule Poirot adaptation, Death on the Nile, which premieres in September. This lucrative sideline began a decade ago with a phone call from Mathew Prichard, Christie's grandson: 'It was out of the blue. He told me that, for the first time in many decades, they wanted to adapt one of the novels for the stage and I could have free choice. I chose Murder on the Orient Express because it was the most popular title and so I thought more people would go to see it.' Did it worry him that the novel also has one of her most famous solutions? 'That's been interesting. Real Agatha Christie fans will know but I think 80-90 per cent of the audience doesn't: they're people who like mysteries or just want a good night at the theatre. When we did Murder on the Orient Express, it surprised me how surprised people were at how it turned out.' That play involved putting a train on stage and now Death on the Nile requires a boat. Does he not like designers? He laughs: 'I trust them! Sometimes, writing plays, I think 'that's going to be hard to stage' but then I think: no, no, theatre artists love challenges. So now I think: just go and figure it out! They come up with solutions you could never have imagined.' Murder on the Orient Express is just under 300 pages and Death on the Nile just over but Ludwig has a clear sense that both should yield two hours of stage time: 'The books are not novellas but not epics. We went to [James Graham's] Dear England last night and that's two hours 50 minutes and worth every second. But, if you did that with a mystery that's supposed to be moving along swiftly, that would be pretty hard to sustain.' Given the complexity of Christie's plotting, does he draw maps and time schemes? 'I don't do that. But, whether it's the adaptations or my own plays, I take enormous numbers of notes on legal pads because they are longer than usual note pads.' Turning to murder from comedy, Ludwig was struck by the structural similarities: 'Maybe that's why they are the two things I've done most of. In comedy and in cosy crime, all these things go up in the air, come down again, break but then eventually everything is ordered and calm again.' Murder on the Orient Express has a 40-minute explanatory monologue for Poirot – meticulously delivered by Henry Goodman at Chichester in 2022. Such pressure on the audience's attention, Ludwig admits, 'is a risk. But it was born out of practicality … You have to be taken inside Poirot's brain and how he ruled out all those possibilities before getting to the point of accusation.' Goodman brought out on stage – as did Kenneth Branagh in his movie versions of the two books – that Poirot is ridiculous in some ways but also has a brain like Sherlock Holmes. 'Right. And that's the genius of the character. He seems like this fussy, pompous fellow who's not going to cause you much trouble and then suddenly he's got ya!' Working on the books, Ludwig says he has never been sure why Christie made Poirot Belgian, so I try out my pet theory: had this punctilious genius been English, he would have been too close to Sherlock Holmes. 'That makes sense. And he usually has a Watson-like sidekick as well: Colonel Hastings.' The writer is unsure why the estate chose him. Despite German heritage – 'it's a more common name in the US than here, there's a Ludwig drum kits company and an air conditioning one' – his appeal to Christie's heirs is likely to have been anglophile tastes: he has written adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories and plays based on Shakespeare. He is currently finishing Garrick's Folly about the actor David Garrick's staging of the Shakespearean Jubilee in Stratford in 1769. 'What I love most is the English tradition of classic comedy that extends from Shakespeare through Congreve and Goldsmith right through to Coward.' He also includes the Irish writers Wilde and Sheridan. 'So I became an Anglophile and also studied at Cambridge University. Those comedies in English are my core. I'd go through those plays and take notes, trying to figure out how they worked beat by beat. How does Sheridan get to the amazing screen scene in The School for Scandal? I still have about a hundred of those breakdowns in my office.' As shown by the seven-figure donation to Stratford-upon-Avon heritage, Shakespeare is his absolute favourite, especially the comedies. While in London, he was planning to see Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing. I warn him that the subplot about comic constables has been cut. 'Well,' he shrugs. 'Of the dozens and dozens of productions of Much Ado I've seen, I've never seen Dogberry and Verges funny. It should be a crack comedy duo but it's hard to land. Remember the Ken Branagh movie way back? [1993] Boy, they were a disaster in that!' Apart from his reading and education, Ludwig's love of this country was also shaped by his career. He had a success in the West End before on Broadway, with Lend Me a Tenor, a farce in which, due to a misunderstanding, two identically dressed singers both believe that they are singing the lead in Verdi's Otello. The play previously had a small American production under the title Opera Buffa. 'The [English] director David Gilmore liked the play,' Ludwig recalls, 'and said he'd like to show it to a producer friend of his. And I got a little pompous and said I also had friends who were producers. And Gilmore said his friend was Andrew Lloyd Webber. So I said: 'Sure, show it to him!' Andrew loved it, but when I met him, he said he wanted to change the name because theatre audiences would never come to see a show with 'opera' in the title.' A lethally timed comic pause. 'Only later did I discover that he was writing The Phantom of the Opera at the time.' An alternative title for Ludwig's play proved elusive until Richard Stilgoe, Lloyd Webber's then lyricist, told him about an expression of the London impecunious: 'Lend me a tenner.' 'Andrew loved it,' the playwright says, 'and, once everyone had explained it to me, so did I.' But the decision led to a curious culture clash: in the UK, people passing the theatre smile at the title; in the US, no one has any idea what it means. The comedy of two Otellos – both wearing the blackface make-up that was standard for white opera singers at the time – caused amusement but some actors, producers, critics and theatregoers also took offence and an alteration was made. 'The minute I became aware that people were worried, I changed the opera within the play to Pagliacci and that's the only version that should be done now.' Is it harder now to write comedy because of increased sensitivity about offence? 'I have been conscious of that changing.' Four years ago, he rewrote Lend Me a Tenor as Lend Me a Soprano because of how male-centric the first play was: 'I turned the three main drivers of the story into women. It's roaring around the United States.' Comedy writers at their desk divide between those who imagine the laughs and those who provide them. Which is Ludwig? 'I have to confess that maybe once a day something will come up and I just laugh until I fall out of my chair. Unfortunately, no audience ever reacts in quite the same way.' Death on the Nile starts its UK tour in Salford on 26 September. Murder on the Orient Express is touring until 3 May.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘History cannot be changed': How Stratford feels about decolonising Shakespeare
Stroll down the ancient warren of cobbled streets in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, and the pride in its most famous literary export is clear to the roads flanked with wonky Tudor façades, visitors flock to take photos of the bronze William Shakespeare statue outside the cottage where he was born in 1564. Smatterings of European and Asian languages can be heard among the crowds, while shops selling trinkets – fridge magnets and tote bags – depicting the Bard's inimitable face are bustling with his fans. The international hubbub is testament to the global reach of Britain's greatest playwright, so it is perhaps not surprising to find disquiet and puzzlement over plans to 'decolonise' Shakespeare's rich legacy in order to make him more 'inclusive'. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, the charity which maintains and preserves Shakespeare's work and image, has embarked on a project to explore the 'impact of Empire' on its vast collection of items relating to the writer. People accessing its collections, it has said, may encounter 'language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful' and it is seeking to re-examine these objects to see what they can 'teach us about the impact of colonialism on our perception of the history of the world, and the role Shakespeare's work has played as part of this'. But the money – some £70,000 – being spent on the project has not gone down well among many of the Bard's fans in his hometown. On a sunny Thursday morning, The Telegraph finds local musician James Thomas busking his eclectic mix of folk and country songs just a few feet from Shakespeare's Henley Street birthplace.'The idea of decolonising Shakespeare is absolutely bonkers,' he says. 'Clearly, some bits of Shakespeare may be problematic; I'm sure some characters in his plays were stereotypical, like Shylock the money lender. But this was a reflection of the time and it will be the same with items in this collection; they will be a reflection of the time and most people understand that.' Thomas believes Britain has 'collective guilt' over the Empire, which is making us apologise unnecessarily for the past. 'We are only one step away from the guilt of the Germans,' he says. 'But we need to stop being apologetic for things that happened hundreds of years ago. Are we meant to take Nelson off the column so we don't offend the French? Shakespeare and his legacy need to be left alone or where do we stop?' Similar concerns can be found five minutes' walk away outside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre on the banks of the Avon, which is awash with boat trips and noisy swans and geese clamouring to be fed. Unlike many Midlands towns, Stratford-upon-Avon has a majority (93 per cent) white population, but the waterfront boasts people from all over the world. Evoking a holiday vibe, they can be spotted perusing the theatre's gift shop, buying tickets to local plays and drinking coffee in the warm spring sunshine. 'We are in danger of forgetting what history is,' says Mike Choules, a retired finance director, who The Telegraph finds sitting on a bench enjoying a quiet moment during a day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. 'When you're travelling overseas, after London, Shakespeare is our greatest output. He is part of Britain's legacy.'And yes, times were different then. In many ways it was an awful time: people were poorer, and housing, health and education were worse. Britain was exploitative too.'It doesn't make it right, but that's where we were. I don't think anyone nowadays should be offended by that. And I don't think Shakespeare set out to offend anyone. Why don't we look to the future?' Looking to the future with a firm understanding of the past is also the view of Kirsten Schmidt, a tourist from Hesse, in west-central Germany, who is on a coach tour of Stratford-upon-Avon and parts of Wales. She has time for only a brief chat before her bus leaves, but she tells The Telegraph that decolonising is also taking place in many of her country's museums. 'It is the same in Germany,' she says. 'But the past is relevant to today; we have many of the same problems. We can learn from it.' Walk around the town, and you soon realise that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, set up in 1847, is integral to life here. Its friendly volunteers are on pavements offering insights into the town and its history. The charity runs five of Shakespeare's family homes and gardens, including his birthplace, his wife Anne Hathaway's cottage, plus New Place, the family home in which he died in 1616. It also looks after more than a million objects connected to the playwright's life and work, including documentary evidence from his baptism, copies of the First Folio of his complete works, plus literary criticism and gifts from around the world. Clearly the trust's global outreach is working well; it attracts more than a million visitors annually. But its focus on the legacy of empire came in 2022 after a collaborative research project between the trust and Dr Helen Hopkins, an academic at Birmingham City University. The resulting report – which came after several years of Black Lives Matter protests – questioned whether Shakespeare's presentation as a universal genius benefited the 'ideology of white European supremacy'. It stated that while the report was not a critique of Shakespeare's enduring greatness, it sought to address how some of the discourses around him – including his universality – reiterated 'imperial logic'. It asked that if Shakespeare were seen as a symbol for 'British cultural superiority' with a 'West-centric' world-view, might this 'continue to do harm in the world today'? It also posited that Shakespeare should be presented not as the 'greatest', but as 'part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world'. And it stated that his global collection was 'unavoidably Anglo-centric' – centring Britain as the point of understanding and all other nations as 'others'. After this report, in 2023 the trust secured £70,200 funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, an organisation committed to 'social justice, tackling injustice and inequality'. The money was for an 18-month project to explore Shakespeare's international legacy, to tie in with the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio of complete works in 1623, seven years after his death. The project's aim was to hear from multiple perspectives on its international collections and appeal to a more diverse audience while also addressing 'offensive or harmful descriptions' in its catalogue. It has also organised 'inclusive' events, one celebrating Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet who was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote a poem in his honour, and a Romeo and Juliet-inspired Bollywood dance workshop. In a statement to The Telegraph, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust says the project 'explores our history of acquisition and how interpretations of our objects and documents have evolved and continue to evolve'.It adds: 'This is something all museums must focus on. By better understanding our collections' histories, we can tell the stories of our past in relation to our present.'The trust's CEO, Rachael North, has also defended the trust's 'absolutely radical' approach to inclusivity. Speaking to Arts Professional magazine, she said the project was 'not focusing on Shakespeare as a man, as a writer' but was 'looking at the history and the impact of our museum collection'.She added: 'I think we should be radically making sure that our collections are accessible and inclusive to everybody and responding to contemporary debate.'And she denied the trust was decolonising Shakespeare, saying: 'There's a feeling that we are somehow toppling William Shakespeare. We are the organisation that celebrates William Shakespeare. We are the home of William Shakespeare. We think he's great.' 'Shakespeare is loved in Pakistan and India, where I am originally from,' he tells The Telegraph, while standing in the shadow of Shakespeare's statue. 'The Bollywood versions of Othello and Romeo and Juliet have been huge blockbusters, and I think his reach could actually be even greater.'He adds that while seeing plays in the UK could be a very white environment, he doesn't feel excluded from Shakespeare. 'I think many people from my background don't go to the theatre but access his work through film. I don't really think people of my heritage feel excluded from this.' He adds that there is no need to apologise for Shakespeare's work or focus on decolonising his collection or making it more inclusive. 'Shakespeare's legacy needs to be left alone,' he says. 'History cannot be changed, we learn and move on. Shakespeare did nobody any harm and he and his time needs to be accepted for what it is.' Dr Hopkins has been approached for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
