Today, 23rd April 2016, is the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare on 23rd April 1616, a day which is also traditionally his birthday.

Now I’m fond of Shakespeare, not only because I grew up just 12 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, bis birthplace, but also because I love his work. I studied his plays at school and university, and I was fortunate to see a few of his plays being performed by the RSC. I have vivid memories of seeing Jonathan Pryce and Sinead Cusack in Macbeth and Jerome Flynn and Sophie Thompson in As You Like It. To this day, I can still recite Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1 by heart and a fair few lines of Hamlet’s To be or not to be soliloquy. And one of my favourite films is Baz Luhrmann’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Yes, it’s safe to say that I love the Bard!