More than Writers

One of the things I’m enjoying most in my job at the moment is teaching Shakespeare to the younger students. I have to say, whilst many bemoan Shakespeare and question why students have to “suffer,” his works in this modern age, being in a classroom with these wonderful 11, 12 and 13 year olds is a reminder that there is still much joy to be had in experiencing a Shakespeare play. Take Year 7, for example. The scene: it’s Wednesday Period 4. This is just before lunch. They’re a bit jiggly because they’re hungry (lunch is 1:15 where I work). We’re reading A Midsummer Night's Dream , looking at Oberon and Titania, rowing over the changling boy, analysing a particular passage. “Miss,” one student pipes up. “When it says “I hath forsworn his bed and his company,” does it mean she won’t sleep with him?!” I confirm her suspicions, to the delight of the class. “He’s sleeping on the couch!” another calls out. We all laugh, myself included. Now its Period 5 and Year 8 are piling in. The Tem...

I’ve been listening to Andy Serkis’s #Hobbitathon, a live stream charity reading of the The Hobbit https://www.gofundme.com/f/thehobbitathoncovid19appeal . He’s spontaneously inventing accents and voices and song tunes. It’s unrehearsed and unedited, with the actor stumbling over sentences and sometimes losing his place. It’s no audiobook but it’s glorious. There’s something so magical about having a story read to you, isn’t there? I think back to primary school, sat on the floor in the corner of the classroom for Little Grey Rabbit or Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator - favourites for both children and teachers. How I loved to read to my own children. I can still quote the rhyming books – Hairy McClary, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes, and of course Dr Seuss. Visiting Seuss Landing at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, my boys were unimpressed by the novelty of a green eggs and ham roll as they were so used to ours! I look back and wonder if these books seeded my younge...

We all know what ascends the brightest heaven of invention . Shakespeare's New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon  Photo credit Abigail Robinson Yes, it's a muse of fire , which Shakespeare wished for in his Prologue to Henry V , as if the power of creativity were indeed a separate being, in this case from Greek mythology.  And I believe that it may sometimes be helpful to visualise our source of inspiration as a separate being - maybe an angel, if not a muse. And as writers, we love and work with metaphor and figurative language all the time, and one of the most loved devices is of course personification,  which can often be highly effective in, for instance, comic writing. A couple of years ago I went to a special event in the garden at New Place, site of Shakespeare’s former family home in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire: an event which stands out as my most imaginative and inspiring experience in that town, even with its rich supply of Shakespeare properties....