Let’s celebrate Shakespeare’s anniversary with something a little more up-to-date

All the Globe and Stratford seem to focus on is anniversary hysteria

The new design was unveiled in Shakespeare's Globe (PA)

I am walking with my son Lucien to school, and testing him on his homework. Lucien is a boy of 11 who loves Chelsea in particular and football in general, and has a keen interest in becoming a decent darts player. This morning, however, we are talking in blank verse. “Stephano, Trinculo, how came’st thou in this pickle?” he declaims.

He is playing the King of Milan (whose inadvertently hilarious line this is) in a school production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This week, he performed it on stage in central London as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival. The festival has been running for the past 15 years under the leadership of Nicholas Hytner. It is not about swishy galas. It is not about Dame Judi, Sir Ian, or, indeed, fancy business with any “named” actors. It is simply about small children and young people speaking the immortal words of Shakespeare in 30-minute versions of the canon.

There are 21 specially adapted plays, nine of which are for primary schools, 10 for special schools. Somehow, with a budget of just £1m, the festival manages to deliver Shakespeare right across the UK. In more than 1,000 schools (both state and private), more than 35,000 children and young people have been tucking swords into belts, tossing back capes and putting on donkey ears. Under the tutelage of professional actors and directors, the great lines have been spoken – in their original form – by children on stages across the nation.

Recently, Julian Fellowes suggested that only people who have had “an expensive education” could properly grasp the true meaning of Shakespeare. This event demonstrates what patent foolishness that is. After seeing The Tempest we were treated to a gripping version of Macbeth by the boys’ comprehensive school William Ellis. It was one of the best Macbeths I have ever seen.

Is the festival doing anything special for 2016 – which, as we are now all doggedly aware, is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death? Well, it will put on some extra projects, but its core purpose of engaging young people with the world’s greatest playwright remains untampered. If only Shakespeare’s Globe and Shakespeare’s birthplace were similarly focused. All they seem focused on is anniversary hysteria.

The supposed significance of “400” will turn Shakespeare up to ear-splitting resonance. Dominic Dromgoole, the artistic director of the Globe, went on the Today programme to announce a series of 37 giant screens along the Thames, each showing 10-minute films of the plays, each of which was shot in the “original” location. No matter that Shakespeare never left this sceptr’d isle. He set Othello in Venice, didn’t he? So Dromgoole’s Othello has been shot there, naturally. How about Antony and Cleopatra right beside the Pyramids? Tick. Romeo and Juliet in Verona? How could you not? Maybe they went up to Henley-in-Arden to do their version of As You Like It, although that lovely village is a bit too near Stratford for comfort.

Because Stratford, or “Shakespeare’s Birthplace”, will not be displaced as the spiritual home of the Bard. The RSC, whose base is there, has anniversary muscles just as big. It is planning a live TV broadcast and the obligatory gala evening. Shakespeare belongs to Stratford, doesn’t he?

No, no, insists Dromgoole. He belongs to London! Come on, we all know that “That which we call a rose/by any other name would smell as sweet” was in actual fact a nasty dig at a rival theatre. Which smelt a lot. Of course it is! London owns Shakespeare because Shakespeare put on some of his plays at the Globe. He is our playwright.

Enough! In the words of the King of Milan: “What ho! Your swords are drawn?!” Shakespeare is a gift to the world. And meanwhile, why don’t we all move on from lazily using anniversaries to tell us what we know already, and instead use what little money there is to salute new playwrights, such as Will Mortimer, Jacqui Honess-Martin or James Fritz? Who are they? Some of the emerging talents whose plays have been shown in Hampstead Theatre’s Downstairs stage. Or any of the other talent that is bringing new work to stages across Britain. We are still such stuff as dreams are made on.