Perhaps Shakespeare does come alive on the stage. But first he must be exhumed in the classroom.

Shakespeare is too obscure for the stage, methinks

By Jemima Lewis

I’d like to do away with Shakespeare altogether – at least on stage. It’s just too old  

'There’s nothing in the world less funny,” my father once told me, “than a Shakespearean joke.” Most of the cultural rules I learnt at my father’s knee – “Winnie-the-Pooh is drivel”; “Never read anything with goblins in”; “Richard Briers is the finest actor of our age” – have proved to be somewhat unreliable. But he was spot on about Shakespeare.

Is there any less convivial feeling than sitting in a theatre surrounded by people pretending to laugh at a Shakespearean gag? “Wahahaha,” they squawk, perhaps dabbing at their eyes for extra authenticity. And then, when you ask what’s so funny, it turns out to be a 400-year-old pun that means Sir Toby Belch has a tiny willy.

In fact, I would go further than my father. I’d like to do away with Shakespeare altogether – at least on stage. It’s just too old. The language is so antiquated that, unless you’ve already studied the play at school, you spend the whole time trying to work out the meaning of one line without missing the next one. It’s like trying to pat your head while rubbing your tummy.

There isn’t a self-respecting culture vulture in the land who would agree with me, of course. The received wisdom tends to go the other way. Shakespeare, according to those in the know, is only difficult or boring when it hasn’t been brought to life. It must be performed on stage to be truly understood.

Dame Judi Dench said this week that she hated studying Shakespeare at school – not because of any failing of the Bard’s (O heavens forfend) but because of the way it was taught. “I remember having to read [aloud] in class,” she said. “Six lines each of the ghastly Merchant of Venice, regardless of who was saying them. It made it a complete nonsense. It ruined the play for me, completely ruined the play.”

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