Today it is
Shakespeare’s birthday. This of course requires some celebration.
In an unusual way, I
grew up with Shakespeare. My dad is a theatre stage manager, and when I was a
child he worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He worked in London most of
the year, but for six weeks every Spring, he’d be based at the RST or the Swan
Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birth place. My mum, my brother
and I, would pack up the car and drive there every weekend, and we’d spend February
half term each year in Stratford. Me and my brother slept on camp beds in those
little cottages opposite the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. I learn to ride a bike
in the park next door.
I think the first
Shakespeare play I saw was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when I was about six. I
don’t remember it, but I do remember seeing The Twelfth Night when I was nine, As
You Like It and The Tempest when I was twelve, Macbeth when I was fifteen and
on and on. I remember watching rehearsals at the Globe theatre in the summer
holidays and helping clear the stage of the Pit at the Barbican after a show. Before
I wanted to be a novelist, I wanted to be a playwright. Or, more accurately, I
wanted to be Shakespeare. In my parent’s house we have at least as many books
on Shakespeare as books actually containing Shakespeare’s plays. We also have
at least two Shakespeare-themed tea towels, and three giant Shakespeare posters
on the wall. I’ve now seen thirty out of thirty-seven Shakespeare plays, and I’m
trying my very best to see them all before the age when my parents first
managed it.
What is strange for
me, I suppose, it that Shakespeare has been a very constant presence in my
life. I distinctly remember discovering Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontës,
Banana Yoshimoto – but I have no memory of discovering Shakespeare. Shakespeare
has just always been there, on family bookshelves, on the stage, in my head.
What great memories.Have you been to the new Theatre in Stratford yet?
ReplyDeleteI have - I went last summer and am going again in June :)
DeleteLovely post! I just found your Youtube Channel too :D
ReplyDeleteThanks very much :)
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