This year's four hundredth anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare is not just an opportunity to commemorate one of the greatest playwrights of all time. It is a moment to celebrate the extraordinary ongoing influence of a man who - to borrow from his own description of Julius Caesar - "doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus."
Shakespeare's legacy is without parallel: his works translated into over 100 languages and studied by half the world's schoolchildren. As one of his contemporaries, Ben Jonson, said: "Shakespeare is not of an age, but for all time." He lives today in our language, our culture and society - and through his enduring influence on education.
Shakespeare played
