The importance of...Shakespeare

The popular children's writer Celia Rees, when she was a secondary school teacher, taught my sixth-form English class Richard III with thorough and at times, grim, determination. I still like the play, but I would be the first to admit that after the dazzling opening speech there are, shall we say, long passages of historical background filling in dialogue that hold up the action. By chance I noticed that she recently wrote a guest blog entry for the Times on the teaching of Shakespeare in school. I reckon she gets it right: the cult of "relevance" can turn into shackles for the very people it is meant to liberate. She also has an interesting writing blog on her own website.