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Shakespeare on the global stage : performance and festivity in the Olympic year / ed. by Paul Prescott
Edited by Bloomsbury Academic - 2014
Shakespeare has long been identified as Britain's 'national poet', but his extensive role in the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad confirmed his expanded status as a modern global icon. From his prominent positioning in the London Olympic Games' Opening Ceremony, Closing Ceremony and Paralympic Opening Ceremony (which reached global audiences of an estimated one billion), to his major presence in the official cultural programme surrounding the Olympic Games (including the Royal Shakespeare Company's World Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre's 'Globe to Globe' Festival and the BBC's Shakespeare Unlocked Season), Shakespeare played a significant role in the way the UK presented itself both to its own citizens and to the world. This collection examines the different cultural forces at play in the construction, use and reception of Shakespeare during the 2012 'Olympic Moment', exploring what his surprisingly persistent presence in the UK's Olympic festivities says about the relationship between culture, politics and identity in twenty-first-century British and global life.