Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

James Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

I am sure that there is much to welcome in the King’s Speech and much to ponder on the theme of “breaking down barriers to opportunity”, but I was warmed to my theme by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is no longer in his place. I always find him entertaining in the House—I always disagree with everything he says—but I think he is entertaining as Shakespeare’s clowns are entertaining. Today marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s first folio, which was the first time that Shakespeare’s plays were published in a printed edition. There were 36 plays in that first folio. Shakespeare is being celebrated across the media today, so, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Shakespeare, I thought it would be remiss not to mark this significant anniversary.

The folio probably represents a foundational moment in our culture, and it is relevant to today’s debate on opportunity. Some of my constituents and others might be saying, “Why is the MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis talking about a dead playwright? Why is he important? What has he got to say about our contemporary world?” I would argue that the folio gives us an opportunity to reassert the continued importance of Shakespeare’s works in the modern world, particularly in our cultural heritage and education system. The performance and understanding of Shakespeare’s plays is essential for the education of our young people.

I recently took part as a judge in a competition organised by the Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation, which asked young people to reimagine a Shakespeare speech in the contemporary world. Some incredibly creative ideas were put forward.

The discipline required to understand Shakespeare is vital. Many of us may have had bad experiences at school. I remember studying “As You Like It” at O-level, and that put me off—it took me until I was doing an English degree five years later to get into Shakespeare. But the discipline and creativity of putting on performances are critical to the education of our young people and the protection of the cultural heritage. Shakespeare is a central part of our national culture.

I want to mention the Rose Revealed project in Southwark. In 1989, archaeological digs were done under a building in Southwark, which revealed one of the original Shakespearean theatres—the Rose theatre—where some of the plays of Shakespeare and Marlow were performed. The second phase of the project is to do further work on that site to create an exhibition centre celebrating the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, with a broader vision to create an Elizabethan quarter on that side of the river in London. Many other organisations across the country support Shakespeare education and the performance of Shakespeare: the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and my alma mater the University of Birmingham, which has the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford doing incredibly important work to promulgate Shakespeare and promote his works.

There is a second reason why celebrating and talking about the folio and Shakespeare is important today. We live in a time when the international order is under threat. We have conflicts throughout the world: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and we have spoken about the situation in Israel and Gaza. Members may ask, “What does Shakespeare have to do with that?” As I mentioned in a recent Prime Minister’s question after Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit, I know from my contacts with the Ukrainian Shakespeare Centre that Shakespeare’s plays—in particular, Hamlet—have been put on in air raid shelters in Ukraine as an act of defiance against Russian aggression. That is an incredibly powerful statement of how a great example of our culture can be used to support democratic values and assert the power of creativity against brazen aggression.

In that sense, Shakespeare is part of our soft power. What do we mean by soft power? I had a conversation with Professor Michael Dobson, who runs the Shakespeare Institute, who said that Shakespeare’s plays and their performances are a kind of conversation in which he represents humanity in all its plurality in an eloquent and vigorous way. Shakespeare characterises all that is best in British culture, while still inviting those of other cultures to join that conversation. Shakespeare is an important part of our soft power, but not in the sense that he is a commodity we can trade around the world. Those plays and performances are a critical way of bringing people together and asserting the power of creativity in our world. That is an important dimension of why we need to celebrate the folio today.

Let me come to my final point about why I am banging on about Shakespeare in the Kings Speech. Feste, a character in “Twelfth Night”, said:

“I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them”.

Shakespeare wrote those words all that time ago, but in our politics, in some ways, words have become false and it is very difficult to prove reason with them, because we are living in this world dominated by social media, the soundbite and—sometimes—false language on both sides of the political divide. It is important that this House considers and celebrates the first folio anniversary, because perhaps we can learn from Shakespeare’s eloquence and the conversation that is the central feature of his plays, as we seek to resolve some of the most profound domestic and international difficulties that we have faced for many years.