Create a shared sense of heritage."
In the Sunday Times (3/2/2014) Meera Syal has called for more performances of Shakespeare’s plays to be set abroad and to feature black and Asian actors to help to “create a shared sense of heritage” among immigrant children.
She advocates teaching the playwright’s works to children as young as five in a move to “expunge the fear about Shakespeare at a very young age”.
Recalling her upbringing in the West Midlands where she was the only Asian girl at her school, Syal said: “Teachers made it clear that Shakespeare was not for the likes of me, despite the fact that I went on to study English and drama at university.
“I did not see it as part of my cultural heritage at all. Rather I saw it as part of the canon of English literature. It was only when I got to university and saw other productions which made Shakespeare relevant that my attitude changed. If it is not taught the right way when you are young, Shakespeare can seem like an elitist and intellectual exercise.”
Syal, who is a governor at the RSC, also suggested approaches such as a modern version of The Tempest for refugee pupils and contemporary gang warfare in London being used to represent inter-family conflict in Romeo and Juliet.
“You can make Shakespeare relevant to a child’s life,” she said. “If you point out to a child that the plot of Macbeth is not unlike the plot of one of their favourite computer games like Call of Duty, without the moral lesson at the end, you will hook them.”
She said it was ironic that Shakespeare was lauded as the greatest British writer when “what he did was plunder stories and myths from around Europe and subtly adapt them to different political situations in Britain”.
She urged more actors to go into schools to enthuse pupils about Shakespeare. “Someone like David Tennant is so iconic for children because he was Dr. Who."
