This year marks the four hundredth anniversary of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, and to mark the occasion we will be welcoming staff from Winchester College into Bishop’s on Monday 13 November bringing a copy of the Folio with them. The girls and boys of our A level English classes will be able to see a copy of arguably the most important book in western theatre at close quarters. Excitement is palpable, anticipation intense - such experiences imprint on memory for a lifetime.
The Bishop’s English Team are teaching The Tempest to Year 12 once again this year; though it’s not my natural choice among Shakespeare’s plays I still love it. I have a vivid recollection of struggling through the stifling West End traffic in a minibus a few years back to deliver a bunch of sixth form students to the National Theatre to see a production. Having parked, I was late in to the auditorium but even so I swiftly became transfixed by the language and spectacle. But for the First Folio the intoxication of that day would not have been possible, as The Tempest was one of the latest plays and only appeared in the 1623 collection of playscripts. The extraordinary thing is that on Monday our students will be able to see those words on a page which dates from just seven years after their author died. History - real, living history - will be their close companion for that hour in our chapel.
Some adults chafe about making Shakespeare relevant in a digital age, with new audiences whose imaginations are more readily engaged by screen than stage. I have never really worried, and with good reason. We have imported his plays to school very often through touring companies, theatre trips, visiting actors, assemblies and services. Every occasion has been a triumph, as the power of the language and the enduring themes have an immediate impact. Even though he was writing over 4 centuries ago, Shakespeare wrote about the driving forces that still make things happen today - love, faith, power, death and wealth. Little has changed.
Inevitably, my favourite lines from The Tempest are near the close of the play, spoken by Prospero:
“Our revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
Monday’s event will be wonderful but brief and, like Prospero’s world of fantasy the visit will leave nothing but memories. But memories endure and imagination will be fired and that, after all, is the power play of Shakespeare's genius... .
SDS
