Without doubt, our greatest artistic achievements have been our Shakespearean productions,

At the mention of young people acting Shakespeare, I can visualise sage theatre-lovers nodding their heads, with a condescending smile. These are the type of people who have a perfect right to their opinions. I would not object to their criticism, if they came to see the shows. More often than not, they never enter the doors of our theatre.

With a sneering smirk they say, 'Well, of course, my dear, they are good I am sure. They must be, because they have had excellent notices in the papers for years. But, I ask you, a young girl playing Juliet, or Queen Margaret. I just can't be done.'

I t can be done. It has been done, and done well. These dismal croakers should have seen June Ritchie playing Juliet when she was thirteen, and Gillian Callan, also thirteen, as Queen Margaret in our production of Richard III in the autumn of 1964. I say with all the sincerity and humility at my command that their performances were outstandingly good, judged by severest of standards.

At the risk of being considered conceited, I state emphatically, that I have heard the mighty Shakespearean line spoken beautifully and intelligently by our teenage performers with an artistry which has found a sympathetic response shown in the rapt attention of a discriminating audience.

When we began to read and study Richard III, I was very impressed by the quality of the reading, particularly by that of the girls. One new member, Gillian Callan, a girl of thirteen, was outstanding. So well did she read that I was convinced she was being coached by someone. In her reading were the cruel dignity, the hatred, the bitterness of Queen Margaret, confidently and arrestingly expressed by a teenager. I ask Gillian if her father or some friend had been helping her to study the part. She said this was not so, and on observing that I could not understand how it was that she was showing such an unusual grip of the part, she said, 'Well, you see, Mr Holland, I like it.'

There was the answer. This is the true reason why we have managed to reach such standards in our productions. We like doing what we set out to do. Our interests are aroused and under the guidance of our small band of dedicated workers our young folk, uninhibited, and as yet not too besmirched by the snarling lethargy of the age, are agog with the vitality and zest of youth. On occasion they touch the clouds, and, sometimes, I feel, they are not so very far from the star of our aim.

I would remind the doubting Thomases that the exacting roles of Ophelia, Portia, Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Cordelia, and in fact all of the female parts in Shakespeare's plays were, in the original productions, taken by teenage boys. They were early teenagers too, because they had to have unbroken voices. That their performances were good we know, without doubt, because we find from contemporary records that the plays in which they performed were in great demand.

I also would remind the 'knockers' that the Elizabethan audiences were much more alive to the beauty of language, and particularly to the quivering ecstasy of the Shakespearean line than are the anaemic audiences of today. The reactions of the groundlings to poor acting and delivery would, I feel, been somewhat drastic.

The young lads taking the female roles would have to be fully aware of the delicate nuances of Mr Shakespeare's majestic parameters. This ability would be of paramount importance, because the simple attempt at scenery would have to be wedded to a most delicate, careful handling of the word-pictures in the script or the mental grasp of the locale where the action was supposed to be taking place would be very indistinct. Furthermore, these lads would be working with old, experienced hands like Burbage, who would demand, and get, the very finest interpretation to match their own vigorous, exhilarating sonorities.

Shakespeare was fully conscious of the use of verbal sound to stimulate the imagination to emotional experience. He does this superbly by the emotive impact of sound.

He frequently used the simple language of the people around him, leaving the precise, artificial literary English for other occasions. His medium was the speech all could understand. It was the language of the Elizabethan age, far richer in every way than the impoverished triviality of modern usage.

To the Elizabethan, his language was too precious to throw away. Remembering this, we must pay great attention to Shakespeare's words. We must respect them. If for nothing else, to spend time and care in the preparation of a Shakespearean production on the words alone is to be enriched beyond computation.

Because I always knew that teenagers could respond to this atmosphere of beauty, which is found in the works of Shakespeare, I was, from the founding of the Theatre, keen to present his plays.

I quiver with repressed indignation when I hear the superior voice of an unbeliever, and it is often someone who does not wish to believe, say 'But a teenager cannot enjoy Shakespeare.'

Let me relate the true story of a schoolboy's passion for Shakespeare. It is the story of my own experience.

When I went to my grammar school, I was lucky enough to have a very fine English master. Very tall, and bespectacled, he was conspicuous because he rode to school on a very high bicycle. It was a Heath Robinson affair, and caused much amusement among the boys. He was known as 'Billy' Minns.

In my first year he quickly endeared himself to a small group in my form. We had gravitated into the same group because of our common thirst for books.

In those days, as boys still do, we took the micky out of any insipid, inefficient teacher, but there were some with whom we risked no liberties. We recognised their strength of control over us, and also, according to our individual reactions, fell under the spell of the born teacher. In a subconscious way, I think we realised that the good teacher was trying to help us. Such a one was Billy. He was a great enthusiast of the arts, particularly literature. His enthusiasm quickly found an eager response from my group.

I can vividly recall the tense expectation when literature lesson came round. At that time I had just discovered Dumas and Robert Louis Stevenson, having with the scorn of youth cast off G. H. Henty, and Percy F. Westerman as 'kids' stuff'. Billy saw that our little gang was really interested in his lessons, and accordingly expanded under our admiration.

At the back of the school was a large playing field. As many of us came from a distance we stayed at school for lunch. In those days there was no canteen. Sandwiches and a thermos flask of tea or coffee, partaken in a rather dingy classroom in the winter, or out on the playing field in the summer, had to suffice for lunch.

Mr Minns used to cycle into Grimsby for lunch. He would come back early and join our literary club. We would all wander up and down the playing field, whilst he would expound on literature generally, and question us on what we were reading, apart from our set books.

No wonder I enjoyed every minute of my schooldays (apart from when I was compelled to play games) with such dedicated teachers as Billy.

He would gently, and without upsetting the tender susceptibilities of our adolescent omnipotence-little different really from that of today-show us what we look for and enjoy in our reading. Very cleverly and subtly, without it being apparent to us, he would edge us away from William le Queux, and lead us to discover the beauty of Thomas Hardy.

On one particular occasion, I can recall, he lifted the lid of Thomas Gray's treasury chest, the Elegy in a Country Churchyard. I still frequently murmur to myself bits of that gem, and never without a salute of gratitude to the shade of Billy Minns.

On Library Day, once a week, when we gathered in the dinner hour to change our books, he was there to supply us with a verbal 'blurb' on the books we would each enjoy. He had an uncanny awareness of the requirements of our individual slants.

How I absorbed his zestful erudition! I could never express my indebtedness to him sufficiently. I often think of him as I find myself enthusing about a book to one of my boy's in school or one of the youngsters at the Theatre. He handed on the torch to me. I try to believe I have succeeded in passing it on to another generation or two. In such a way a great spirit goes marching on.

One morning when I was about fourteen, he told us that on the following Monday, we were going to start to study a Shakespearean play. It was to be Julius Caesar.

Faintly realising that Shakespeare was considered the greatest English writer, but possessing no deep knowledge of the subject, I took the trouble to read a little about this genius at the week-end.

On Monday Billy gave us a masterly exposition on Shakespeare, his plays and the Elizabethan Theatre generally. That lesson was vividly impressed on my consciousness, and remains with me today.

He played on our adolescent curiosity for interesting facts like an expert organist on a five-manual instrument. He pulled out the right stops and muted the notes which would have bored us at that particular moment. These notes were duly introduced later. Shakespeare became for me, after that lesson, a pulsating personality, and not a figure on a tomb. By the end of the lesson Billy had struck the right chord.

He whetted our young appetites by reading to us-and how he could read! -Antony's funeral oration, and another speech which appealed to me more, the speech Antony makes when he returns after the assassination of Caesar and is left with the corpse. As Billy finished on the words, 'With carrion men, groaning for burial'. There was a dead silence, such a silence as is occasionally heard in a theatre after a superb performance by a first-rate actor.

When the school closed that afternoon, I raced home, bolted my meal, and shut myself in the library. I was thirsting for more of those magnetic words. I knew where there was a volume of Shakespeare; I had often dipped into it because it was profusely illustrated. I searched feverishly until I found the speeches which had so impressed me in the morning.

Lovingly and lingeringly, I read them aloud, hypnotised by their power, not fully understanding the meaning of them, but there was an awakening within myself of a sympathetic vibration to the magic of the bewitching words.

The next morning, I was up at five-thirty. It was June, and the golden light of the morning sun flooded my bedroom. I got up, hastily dressed myself, and creeping downstairs, I went out on to the large lawn, which faced south. I took the volume of Shakespeare with me. Dipping into Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, I found lines which appealed to me. I shouted them out, to the great surprise of robins, linnets and thrushes, all busily engaged on their morning hymn of praise.

I remember a few mornings later, for this occupation became my daily joy, I climbed the steps from the lawn, leading to the terrace, and, sitting on the edge of the fountain there, splashing its sparkling waters in the sun, I voiced the Mercy Speech to listening robin, as he perched, not six inches away, head on one side, with a look of age-old wisdom in his piercing eye.

'Oh, but,' say Dismal Donald and Jealous Jemima, 'children cannot appreciate Shakespeare.' The times that this has been said to me. Of course every youngster cannot understand or appreciate Shakespeare. Let us be honest. Large numbers of adults cannot. They do not even try, and, what is worse, boast about their inability to enjoy the beauty of the master.

I am old-fashioned enough to believe firmly that, as I am a teacher, it is my solemn duty to introduce my pupils to the works of our greatest writers, I know that some of them will gradually come to love and enjoy good writing and be the better for it. To say, as an excuse, as one headmistress did, that her girls these days did not find anything interesting in Shakespeare's work is, to my way of thinking, a blatant admission of complete failure, or laziness. Had I not been taught by Billy Minns, what I might have missed!

Many new entrants into the teaching profession, have little interest in literature. Revelling in a disbelief in worthy things, they quite openly sneer at the arts. To those of us who still believe in noble endeavour and a few ideals, this is heartbreaking to contemplate.

We seem to be enlisting into our ranks too many insensitive people, with no sense of vocation. These people destroy by open, boorish ridicule some of the most delicate textures of the adolescent mind. This wanton destruction is as lurid and hideous as stamping on a delicate flower with hob-nailed boots. The greatest horror of all this is, that once these gossamer threads are severed, seldom, if ever, can they be rejoined. The stupendous responsibilities of a teacher are seldom realised by the teachers themselves, and hardly ever by the layman.

This story of my development in the realms of literature is no romanticised version, but the plain, unvarnished truth. By the time I left college, my love of Shakespeare had become a ruling passion in my life, and remains so today.

Wherever else I may go on holiday, every summer I spend at least ten days in Stratford-upon-Avon. I see all the plays at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. My year would not seem complete if I missed this visit.

I have always found that quite a fair proportion of my pupils in school once introduced to the charm of Shakespeare, will find something to please them. Once the interest is aroused, with judicial encouragement it grows. When interest is there, then the youngsters themselves enlarge their appreciation of the Master.

After five years of persistent requests for us to put on a Shakespearean production, I think my colleagues on the Executive Committee of the Theatre were utterly weary, and in sheer desperation, one of them said, 'For God's sake let him have is way. When he has done one, and it's turned out a flop, he will have had the opportunity , and we'll get some peace ,'

In this spirit of pleasantry, but with qualms in the minds of the Executive Committee of the Theatre, we decided in 1951 to put on A Midsummer Nights Dream.

This was a particularly exciting time in the Theatre. Many of our well-wishers felt we were in for a fall. Joe, playing Oberon, arrived at the first rehearsal word-perfect. Asking him how he had mastered this script quicker than the previous pantomime, his reply was, 'Ah, you see, this flows.'

Our fourteen-year-old Puck was brilliant. He was a restless, scintillating bundle of mischief. A sufferer from asthma, he was frequently ill, and many of the rehearsals had to taken in his bedroom. He wanted to do the part so much and I was determined he should not miss the experience, even if we had to carry him to the theatre. Brian Trueman, now a well-known television personality, played Lysander magnificently. The unanimous opinion was that the show was an unqualified success. Since then I have had no opposition from my Executive Committee. Reference to our list of productions that he Shakespearean production has become a 'must' every season.

Romeo and Juliet was one of our most memorable shows. June Ritchie, now a well-known film actress, played Juliet. Even at that age, thirteen, she thirsted for perfection. She was never satisfied. She would phone me to query some point and to recite some speech which she felt she was not understanding correctly.

Another outstanding player in that production was Mary Stanner who took the part of the Nurse. The scenes where she and June played together were a revelation.

I am frequently asked how we set about to prepare a Shakespearean production. The best way to explain I think is to take the reader step by step, from the moment when we decide to do a specific play. Once the play is chosen, all interested members are asked to procure a copy of the script. A date is fixed when we plan to read the play through. We check to see that we all have the same edition of the full script. Some editions are mercilessly and often badly cut. To begin with we like to have the full script, and if we cut at all, we decide ourselves what cuts are to be made.

I then ask those members who would be prepared to read on the arranged date to hand in their names to me. From this list, I arrange a reading cast, and about a week before the date, the cast list is put up on the notice board.

The fact that some of the readers may be new members and their capabilities unknown to me, does not perturb me. I know what many on the list can do, and if a newcomer has the pluck to attempt to read with the experienced ones, then it is an indication that he or she is keen.

Usually this first reading of the play is good, because everyone is most anxious to create a good impression.

I make a special point of having a chat with this reading cast, and explain to them that they need not feel embarrassed if they make mistakes. I remind them that everyone has to make a start. It is essential that all should be put at their ease. This helps towards a more satisfactory performance.

The main reason for this reading is that we may all, at the outset, get an idea of the plot, and at the same time I get an opportunity to explain any outstanding obscurities. Another point, I often discover new talent on this occasion.

On the evening arranged e meet at the headquarters at seven-thirty. The play is read through from beginning to end, with no breaks unless it is absolutely necessary.

As we choose the programme for the next season at the end of the current one, we generally have this reading of our Shakespeare play in about July. We can now spend some time reading the play, allowing all the interested members to take part in turn.

These readings become evenings when we discuss every aspect of the play. All archaic language can be explained, classical allusions clarified and obscurities thoroughly explored. Peculiarities of customs mentioned in the script, and details of costume are all explained. Thus in an atmosphere of pleasant inquiry, the play becomes alive, and the members can visualise the full implications of character and plot. All this is accomplished before the actual casting is mentioned.

During this time I am soaking myself in the background of the play and in the play itself. When we were preparing for Richard III, I read over thirty volumes dealing with the Wars of the Roses and with Richard himself. I also saw the marathon production of Shakespeare's plays dealing with this period, at Stratford-upon-Avon.

After a few weeks of this interesting approach I put on the table in the Rehearsal Room, some pieces of paper. On the top of each piece is the name of one of the characters from the play. The members are asked to put their names under the characters for which they wish to audition, numbering them in order of preference. I collect them and arrange a cast from these names for selected scenes. A date is fixed for the first audition. Any member may attend the audition, whether he is reading or not. Usually there is a large attendance at these auditions. One or two members of the Executive Committee are present.

We may have several auditions, as we are especially keen that the best, and only the best, should appear in our Shakespearean productions.

Once the cast is settled and the various members have accepted the parts offered to them, then we can start rehearsals proper. It may be that we cast only the principals before we start rehearsals and the less important characters are left till later. In the meantime various members are asked to stand in to read these parts. Gradually, after hearing the reading, the parts are cast. When the cast is complete the real work begins.

I allow twenty-four rehearsals. The procedure from this point is as explained in the chapter on rehearsals. Our rehearsal time-table for our Shakespearean play will be as follows.

1st Rehearsal Act 1 Read through

2nd Rehearsal Act 1 Read through for exits and entrances

Act 2 Read through

3rd Rehearsal Act 1 Exits and entrances

Act 2 Exits and entrances

Act 3 Read through

4th Rehearsal Act 2 Exits and entrances

Act 4 Read through

5th Rehearsal Act 3 Exits and entrances

Act 5 Read through

6th Rehearsal Act 4 Exits and entrances

Act 5 Exits and entrances

7th Rehearsal General discussion on work done

Special explanations if required

8th Rehearsal Act 1 No books. Main moves

9th Rehearsal Act 1 No books. Main moves. Little Business

Act 2 No books. Main moves

10th Rehearsal Act 1 No books. More detail

Act 2 No books. More detail

11th Rehearsal Act 2 No books. More detail

Act 3 Main moves

12th Rehearsal Act 2 No books. More detail

Act 3 Main moves

13th Rehearsal Act 3 No books. More detail

Act 4 Main moves

14th Rehearsal Act 3 More detail

Act 4 More detail

15th Rehearsal Act 4 More detail

Act 5 Main moves

16th Rehearsal Act 4 More detail

Act 5 No books. Main moves

17th Rehearsal Acts 1, 2, 3

18th Rehearsal Acts 4, 5

19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th Rehearsals. Increasing detail and business. Polish. Dress Rehearsal.

In a production, such as a Shakespearean one, I sometimes call a 'Dress' Rehearsal, when the cast has an opportunity to wear the costumes, and get to appreciate the 'feel' of them. It also gives the Wardrobe department a chance to make alterations and adjustments. Such an occasion is also used as a photographic call.

When we had given the last performance of Richard III I was sitting in the dressing room as the boys were taking off their make-up. With a relaxing sigh, one sixteen-year-old said, 'Gosh, I feel as though I have been mentally purified! Whatever show I am in next, I cannot possibly have a better part. You can get your teeth in a Shakespeare part, and feel a better person for having done it.' Surely no finer tribute could be possibly paid to either Shakespeare, or the work we do in the theatre.

Two short anecdotes will reveal in the telling zest of our youngsters. A week before our production of Julius Caesar, in 1963, we were preparing for one of our last rehearsals. All the cast had assembled except the lads playing Brutus and Caesar. Sundry remarks about latecomers were wafting around among the waiting cast, when the door opened, and in walked the missing pair. There was a gasp. Conversation stopped in mid-air. Heads turned, and mouths opened in wonder. Displaying a little embarrassment, the two boys came to me and apologised for being late. They said they had been delayed at an appointment. They had been to an exclusive hairdressing saloon, and at a cost of fifteen shillings each, paid out of their 'spends', had had their hair done in true Roman style. Such moments are precious memories to me.

When one of the lads said, 'Your not vexed, are you, Mr Holland?' I could hardly find the words to tell him how thrilled I was at their zeal. Allowing a few moments to let their friends examine the result of their keenness, and to comment on the fact that a Beatle haircut and a Roman one were very similar, we then attacked the assassination scene with added gusto.

The other story concerns Richard III. When we were in rehearsals for this production, one of the cast, a thirteen-year-old, managed to persuade his father to stop a night at Stratford-upon-Avon, on the way for the family holiday. Somehow he managed to get a ticket for a performance of Richard III. This had cost him twelve shillings and sixpence.

When he returned to the Theatre, he was full of the performance. He told me how he enjoyed the show. As I had seen this production, we could compare notes. His grasp of the finer points of the presentation was excellent. After he had told me of his enjoyment, he took out of his pocket wallet a small piece of material like Bakelite. He explained how in one scene the plotters all brought down their maces on the council table with a mighty blow to emphasise their oaths, and this splinter had flown off into his lap. Very lovingly he passed it around among the admiring cast. A certain kind of awe was present that evening, and a depth of meaning, hitherto absent from our acting, showed itself.

Some years ago a friend of our Theatre gave us a statuette of Shakespeare. He stands in our rehearsal room and has no more loyal band of worshippers than the Stretford Children's Theatre.