Living with Shakespeare at the National Portrait Gallery

With the Globe, and its new neighbour the Wannamaker Theatre, London boasts a Shakespeare season that lasts all year, every year. But with such diverse productions, we rarely consider the intricate journey from page to stage. Fascinating, then, that the National Portrait Gallery is marking Shakespeare’s 450th birthday with ‘ Living with Shakespeare ’, a lecture delivered by Sir Richard Eyre, exploring the process of adapting the Elizabethan plays for modern audiences.

During his ten-year stint as head of the National Theatre, Eyre presided over many memorable productions, including Ian McKellan’s Richard III and Jonathan Pryce’s Hamlet . In 2012, he criticised the BBC for not ‘taking Shakespeare seriously’, triggering a “cultural Olympics” which included his hit television adaptation of the history plays, The Hollow Crown . Eyre's reflections on transforming Shakespeare's scripts into modern performances provide a novel backstage perspective important to anyone fascinated by the Bard.