400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death–A compilation of coverage

400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death celebrations to start with street party

By Sophie Heaviside for the Stratford Observer, 31 December 2015

PEOPLE in Stratford are being invited to party with Shakespeare to kick off the 400th anniversary of his death.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust will host a street party in Henley Street on Saturday (January 2) to celebrate what is set to be a big year for the town.

From 4pm to 5.30pm there will be activities for all the family and live performances including The Booty Duo, John Bird and Victoria J Wilson.

And rounding up the evening will be a special lightshow featuring people’s memories of Shakespeare.

Those who took part in the ‘Tis in my memory lock’d project’ will be able to see themselves projected onto the walls of Shakespeare’s Birthplace as part of the display.

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William Shakespeare: 2016 is the 400th anniversary of his death

By Nancy Groves for the Guardian, 1 January 2016

Few cultural figures are afforded quite as many anniversary knees-ups as Shakespeare – then again there’s nothing like being born and dying on the same day to keep you in the calendar. In 2014, the world toasted the 450th birthday of Warwickshire’s most famous son. A new year brings Shakespeare 400, marking four centuries since the playwright’s death.

Chief among the cheerleaders is the Royal Shakespeare Company, whose national tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – directed by Erica Whyman – will cast local performers as the mechanicals in every region of the UK. The same play has inspired four leading Scottish institutions to team up for New Dreams, a festival season of performance in Glasgow directed by Graham McLaren.

On the page, after The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson’s lyrical retelling of A Winter’s Tale last autumn, comes the next Hogarth Shakespeare edition, Shylock Is My Name, Howard Jacobson’s spin on The Merchant of Venice in February, followed by Anne Tyler and Margaret Atwood’s takes on The Taming of the Shrewand The Tempest in June and October, respectively.

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Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary: ‘man of Stratford’ to be celebrated in 2016

By Maev Kennedy for the Guardian, 1 January 2016

The world shares him and London claims him, but Stratford-on-Avon intends to spend 2016 celebrating William Shakespeare as their man: the bard of Avon, born in the Warwickshire market town in 1564, and who died there 400 years ago.

Stratford remained hugely important throughout Shakespeare’s life, argues Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. “People have seen Shakespeare as a Dick Whittington figure, who turns his back on Stratford and his family, goes to London to earn his fortune and only comes back to die,” he said.

“[But Stratford is] where he bought land and property, where he kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are going to spend the year re-emphasising the importance of Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.”

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Gregory Doran on how the country took Shakespeare to its heart

By Gregory Doran for The Telegraph, 1 January 2016

In 2016 a host of events will mark the Bard’s 400th anniversary. RSC director Gregory Doran tells how celebrating Shakespeare became a national past-time

In 1662, John Ward was appointed vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He noted somewhat anxiously in his diary: “Remember to peruse Shakespeare’s plays, and be much versed in them, that I may not be ignorant in that matter”, a sentiment no doubt echoed by every Stratford vicar since.

But he also writes: “Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.”

This is the only account we have of Shakespeare’s death in 1616. According to his funerary monument in the church, he died on April 23, which is generally accepted to be the very day on which he was born. So perhaps he went out to celebrate his 52nd birthday with his two mates, Ben and Mike (Michael Drayton, a fellow Warwickshire poet), and overdid it rather drastically.

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From the RSC to the BBC, Britain celebrates Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary

By Beth Ryan for The Telegraph, 1 January 2016

The country celebrates Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary this year, four centuries after his death on April 23, 1616. Britain’s cultural institutions are celebrating the poet’s life and works, with new exhibitions, shows and more.  From Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III to David Mitchell as the Swan of Avon himself, here are the pick of the bunch.

Royal Shakespeare Company

Dream 2016 is the RSC’s mammoth production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which, along with its near 700 cast members made up of professionals, amateurs and schoolchildren, will launch in Stratford-upon-Avon in February before touring the country. There will be new productions of Hamlet, Cymbeline, King Lear and others. The RSC will also take Henry IV Parts I & II and Henry V to China on their first major tour of the country, before continuing on to New York with those plays, as well as Richard II.

• Buy tickets to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Stratford-upon-Avon performances from Telegraph Tickets; 0844 871 2118

BBC

Launching on April 23 to celebrate the playwright’s birthday, the BBC’s Shakespeare Festival will see an array of exciting productions. Upstart Crow, Ben Elton’s BBC Two sitcom about Shakespeare’s life and works, will star David Mitchell as the bard and Harry Enfield as his father, while Benedict Cumberbatch and Judi Dench will star in the next instalment of BBC2 drama The Hollow Crown.

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