00:00To me, and Ian, I'm sure it's so unbelievably exciting to see that there is a new initiative to bring Shakespeare so frivolously, sexually, violently, when all the good stuff to life. So, thank you. Thank you, everybody.
00:19Hello, I'm Bridie Monaghan. I'm a reporter with The Independent, and today I am here at Middle Temple Hall, the location of the very first production of Twelfth Night Battle 1602.
00:30We're here today because the Royal Shakespeare Company, along with the Foyle Foundation, are launching a brand new RSC Shakespeare curriculum to tackle growing concerns over the way that Shakespeare is taught in schools.
00:42Students who have been lucky enough to trial the free digital platform joined leading RSC actors Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Ian McKellen, Adjua Ando, and Alfred Enoch for a Shakespearean breakfast banquet to celebrate the launch of the app.
00:56I spoke to 15-year-old Gia Desai from Stratford-upon-Avon School about the impact it's had on her lessons.
01:02A lot of people find acting or performing difficult, and it's not a case of having to stand up in front of the class and do it in front of everybody.
01:11It's everybody does it together. You're actually immersed in the play itself, so you can understand it better.
01:19It's been absolutely incredible to experience this whole doing instead of sitting at a desk and learning. It's been amazing.
01:28This is one of the most famous celebrated Englishmen you ever lived. It was not a politician or a general, won't he? A monarch? An actor?
01:39Yeah.
01:40And it happens around the age, and that's always aå¹… to me.
01:45As I had to know, after 60 or 70 years of acting Shakespeare, it is fairly difficult, and I'm still not supposed to put that through it , so how could a child of 13 or 14 begin to appreciate the wonderful disabilities of Shakespeare's writing?
02:02But looking at the curriculum, you know, I've changed my mind.
02:06The great sociologist, the first media guru, Neil Postman, said children are the living
02:13messages we send to a time we shall not see.
02:17Those kids we see there, those young people we've got in here, will be walking this beautiful
02:23fragile planet when some of us won't be here anymore.
02:26That is an extraordinary responsibility and opportunity for the teaching profession to
02:33help those young people to be equipped with the knowledge, the skills, the values, the
02:38actions, the stories that will help them shape visually a legacy for every child understanding
02:45the stories the people he was presenting to us.
02:48And that's why this, I think, is so important.
02:51Because in an age when sometimes it helps the role of the teacher is simply to talk
02:54out silent as their children.
02:56This does the opposite of it.
02:58This is just like the actors, the directors, the producers, all of those other people who
03:02work in the theatre have to make decisions all the time.
03:05We want you to explore Shakespeare through you making decisions.
03:09So that you can then present and argue for the vision of Shakespeare that you want.
03:14That is an extraordinary plan.
03:16And we're going to be proud of it because children are the living essence.
03:21We send them to a time we shall not see.
03:26The new RSE curriculum hopes to be rolled out across 80% of UK secondary schools by the year
03:322030, transforming teaching Shakespeare as we know it.
03:36Because as Malvolio says in Act 2, Scene 5, some are born great, some achieve greatness,
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