The Mirror reports that the Government are keen to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company to stream more Shakespeare productions into schools to support the study of the Bard's work. The move follows the broadcast of last year's production of Richard II which was filmed at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in November. The broadcast was followed by a live Q&A session with star David Tennant and director Gregory Doran.
Gregory Doran said, "Richard II was streamed into 461 schools, so thirty-odd thousand children saw it, 57 per cent of which had never seen Shakespeare before or the RSC and then David answered questions from the kids."
He has already been contacted by education secretary Michael Gove who recently caused uproar by suggesting that modern and American works of literature should be axed from the GCSE syllubus in favour of classic works.
"I've had quite a few conversations with Michael
Gove," Greg says. “Because I have instituted a six or seven-year plan to go
through all of the Shakespeares and we hope to do live broadcasts of a
substantial number of those every year, as Gove says, the logic would be to
suggest to the examination boards that, if they know far enough in advance that
they have these plays at these particular times, why not answer the questions
on them?”
"I'm very aware just how difficult Shakespeare can seem
first time around, it's a 400-year-old language, after all,” he added. "A
400-year-old language that has been current for 400 years, but, nevertheless, I
think if something grabs you from those plays, it gives you a passport for your
life. It certainly has for me."
Richard II starring David Tennant, Michael Pennington, Oliver Ford Davies and Nigel Lindsay played in Stratford-upon-Avon and London between October 2013 - January 2014 and was the first RSC production to be broadcast into cinemas worldwide. It is now available on region free DVD and Blu-Ray and can be ordered from Amazon:
UK
Source: The Mirror
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