Sir: Howard Jacobson is right (Review, 23 March). Shakespeare in Love is tosh, and I loved it. It was such good tosh. Indeed it takes tosh to new heights, something Shakespeare did in his day with A Midsummer Night's Dream, for example. Furthermore, it makes Shakespeare accessible to a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise read him. I went to see the film with an Austrian friend who has a degree in English and had always steered clear of Shakespeare. After seeing the film, she went away determined to try reading one of his plays.
As for the Christopher Marlowe joke, this got a real belly laugh in the cinema, something Shakespeare would have been proud to have caused.
Congratulations to all those involved in the film. You deserved your Oscars. Thank God Shakespeare doesn't only belong to the dry and dull purists.
MARY ZACAROLI
Oxford
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