Culture isn't for necessarily for everybody, but it would be a rare person who didn't get at least something from the works of
William Shakespeare. If you're a Shakespeare fan, and you feel like a trip to England, the UK's Royal Shakespeare Company is doing a special season, starting this month and running for a whole year. They're performing every single one of Shakespeare's extant plays - thirty-nine of them - in London and in the Bard's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon.
The performances aren't short of stars, either. Patrick Stewart, famous as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, is appearing as Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and as Prospero in The Tempest.
Getting to London from the US is pretty easy, and Stratford-upon-Avon isn't much more difficult. It lies around ninety miles to the north-west of London, a little to the south of Birmingham, the UK's second city. Stratford is a pretty town to explore, and although the touristification as been done tastefully, at no point are you ever allowed to forget that this is Shakespeare's birthplace! The walk along the banks of the River Avon to the Church of the Holy Trinity is fun and relaxing, especially during the summer when you can admire rowers and canoeists scooting past on the river, as well as the serene swimming of the swans with their cygnets.
The church itself is one of the highlights of Stratford-upon-Avon. It's an unusual church, with a rare, dog-legged knave and some interesting architectural features. However, it's best known for holding the mortal remains of Stratford's best-known son. Shakespeare is buried, along with members of his family, in a row just in front of the high altar. He's on the far left hand side as you look at the altar, almost scrunched into a corner. On his tombstone there is no name and no dates. Just this sinister inscription:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, But cursed be he that moves my bones.
Shakespeare didn't get this place of honor in the Holy Trinity because he was a famous playwright, but because his plays made him a wealthy man; some of that wealth he donated to the Church, and the church's gratitude is reflected in his distinguished burial spot. Above the tomb is a painted bust of the man himself. Every year on his birthday (23 April) a fresh feather quill is placed between the bust's fingers - after all, a writer of his standing deserves a new pen every now and then...
Stratford-Upon-Avon (Horrible Histories)
Plotting Change: Contemporary Women's Fiction (Stratford-Upon-Avon Studies Second Series)
Master Richard Quyny,: Bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon and friend of William Shakespeare
Thomas Dekker: The Wonderful Year; The Gull's Horn-Book; Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish; English Villainies Discovered by Lantern ... Writings (Stratford-upon-Avon Library)
Early Shakespeare (Stratford-Upon-Avon Studies 3 )