A year of celebrations in Shakespeare’s home

For the first time, the company is bringing together two Shakespeare plays, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing, in two new productions set just before and just after the war, directed by Christopher Luscombe: Love’s Labour’s Lost and Love’s Labour’s Won.

Alongside these plays, the company has commissioned a new family production, The Christmas Truce by Phil Porter, which draws on the true stories of the Warwickshire Regiment.

While the RSC’s Henry IV and Anthony and Cleopatra are among its Shakespeare plays to go on tour this year, the Swan Theatre in Stratford is staging the work of the bard’s contemporaries, including The Witch of Edmonton and The Shoemaker’s Holiday; while Shakespeare’s 450th birthday celebrations will continue with a firework display in Stratford on April 23 and performances of a new production of The Tempest, a joint work between the RSC and the Ohio State University, developed specifically for children with autism.

There will also be a Midsummer Mischief festival in June and July, during which writers will respond as radically as they would like to the provocation that ‘well behaved women rarely make history’.

For full details and to book tickets, visit www.rsc.org.uk