On this, his 450th birthday, I would like to say thank you to William Shakespeare. As a suggestion of what Shakespeare has given us all, I do not think Bernard Levin can be bettered:  Shakespeare’s language permeates and shapes our thought. But I am not trying to express a generalised academic or cultural judgement: I want to give a personal thank you.

My first memory of Shakespeare is from when I was aged around 10. My mother was studying English Literature ‘O’ Level at night class, with Antony and Cleopatra a set text. Curiosity led me to learn one or two passages. I didn’t really understand them, but I liked the richness of the language, the very sound of it. The first play I saw performed was Henry IV part II. Like Antony and Cleopatra, not the most obvious place to start. Again, I didn’t really understand it, but I liked the quality of the production (I was lucky beyond measure that my first Shakespeare performance was at Stratford). It was absorbing, satisfying; it promised much and I wanted to be able to understand it better.

The epiphanic moment occurred a few years later, when I was around 14. It was a few days after the actual performance (which had been a production of Twelfth Night at my local repertory theatre, Bolton Octagon).  I was at a disco in my local scout hut (it being the 1970s, this really was the apogee of my social whirl): I realised that, although the disco was fun, I would prefer to be back at the theatre and seeing the play again. The damage was done, and proved to be permanent.

So my life onwards was punctuated by performance.  Years of family holidays at Stratford, watching everything possible in the course of a week.  For a while, when married life took me round the country, I was on short rations, often dependent upon touring performances whose tours didn’t, in all honesty, come that close (travelling from Helston to Liskeard,  or Helensburgh to Carlisle, to get to a performance in a sports centre – it was all worth it).  The joy of moving to Plymouth and seeing the RSC flag over the Plymouth Theatre Royal (yes, I wept).  Of course it wasn’t just Shakespeare:  he was my entry point; he taught me, as it were, how to watch plays, and he led me on to.. well to pretty much everything else.

I owe to Shakespeare my time at Cambridge University: I wanted to study English in order to study Shakespeare and, having been led to believe that an English degree wasn’t as “good” as one in Science or Engineering, applied to Oxbridge in the hope that the quality of university might offset the poor choice of subject. I owe him a lasting friendship with my mother, distinct from our blood ties: in our love of Shakespeare, our enthusiasm for going to the very best performances, we were equals. Begun during my teenage years, it continued as we both grew older and persisted even through her progressive dementia. So at her funeral, we had words from Cymbeline and The Tempest, just as meaningful for her as the biblical readings. I owe him the names of my children and, now their studies have taken them away from home, I have Shakespeare to thank for giving us cause to gather back together. Certain thrilling performances of his plays, Rory Kinnear as Iago in Othello and Simon Russell Beale as King Lear, work as a summons to the Jones family, to gather at the South Bank.

Very simply, many of the very finest, and most deeply moving theatrical experiences of my life have been watching Shakespeare. I cannot say that enough: done well, Shakespeare’s are the most satisfying and enriching plays I have ever seen. There are memories of performances which move me to tears even now. I have come away from theatres restored, transported, refreshed: his plays operate on a level of the deepest therapy. A life without Shakespeare is unimaginable – I suspect literally unimaginable – at least, my imagination would be very different and sadly lacking without him. At the start of chapter 9 in Cue for Treason, a fine children’s book by Geoffrey Trease, is one of my favourite sentences:

“I think Will Shakespeare was the most understanding person I ever knew”.

Shakespeare feels like a friend, a great friend, the most enriching companion throughout my whole life. Happy birthday, Will, and thank you.