Back in May the Cardiff Shakespeare Readers spent a glorious evening studying the Sonnets, perhaps the most concentrated form of play-writing in verse since Chaucer. Each sonnet becomes a stepping stone along a young man's path through life; something mirrored by Hogarth in his cartoons of the Rake's Progress a century plus later.

Studying several, but not all, of the sonnets we brought out the truth of them, the hidden meanings which, if they'd been studied that way when I was at school, many years ago, would have aroused our interest much more than they did. But then we studied Henry V, our last reading for the CSR group and, thanks to the new Complete Works by the RSC (yellow binding) the hidden meanings the truth about what this genius was writing, is now out in the open.
And now I know why they held back in school.

But why do it? Make the man real and breathe and you arouse more interest in the rest of his work.
The RSC campaign to Stand up for Shakespeare gets him into the classroom at an early age. It pulls the pupils out of their chairs and onto their feet. Good, about time too! The Globe Education project works with children to make theatre a force that's alive and a live force. It is also a way to bring children in to a world of imagination where, as Shakespeare requests us in Henry V (Chorus to Act 1) 'On your imgainary forces work.'
I now know the meaning behind the most uncomprehensive scene in that play, at least to us schoolboys back in the late 60's; that of Katherine and Alice. What was so funny about somoenoe learning English? Read the notes in the RSC Complete Works and listen to Elizabethan English spoken. Then all becomes realistically and beautifully clear. And it also becomes clear why this was kept back from a class of 26 boys aged 12 and over.

Yet, if you go to see the current Globe production of Romeo and Juliet-(not Richard and Judy as someone thought R & J meant), the meanings of the words are brought to life in the most explicit manner possible. The result? More laughter, less embarassment, and a deeper understanding of the one play that many of my aquaintance, having 'studied' it in school for GSCE, wish never to see, hear or read again. Did school make it that boring? They should have read between the lines.

That, I believe, is what the Bard wishes us to do. He makes it both implicit and explicit through words what he's saying, and audiences in 1599 would have got the jokes without the visuals. In 2001 some need the visuals because we've lost the ability to listen and use our imaginations. We rely on someone else's interpretation to bring it alive. And that is the beauty of theatre. It is alive. It is an active, lively, breathing thing. This is not a contradiction. Shakespeare uses words and in 1599 you went to 'hear a play'; they revelled in the language. Our ears are different, we hear things in a whole new way and meanings change over years.

If we bring out the best in The Bard, we bring out the best in ourselves. We open our minds and imaginations. And it is through our imaginations in the way we present these works to the public that we have the ability to inspire others and bring out the best in them. It's the ideal knock-on effect.
Lord Olivier in his maiden speech to the House of Lords, said he had always regarded Theatre as the 'First glamouriser of thought'.

The recent production of Phedre in Ted Hughes translation at the RNT has the most glorious language; speeches you want to chew over and spit out the words to the audience. I saw the relay in Cineworld in Cardiff, sat in a packed audience and not a bleeper was heard.

Films we can keep and view anytime; they won't change. Theatre is immediate and has a pulse. It encourages new and dangerous writing, to push back the boundaries of what we know; to experiment the way William did. Look at the words he created! It is the language that counts; it is as vital now as it was to the Ancient Greeks and the Elizabethan audiences, through Congreve, Wilde, Shaw and Pinter et al to 2001 and on. Perhaps even more so. It arguably starts with William. We should relish the language because when we do, so will the audiences.