RSC stars and warring houses kick off Shakespeare festival

Published Tuesday 25 April 2006 at 14:45 by Alistair Smith

The Royal Shakespeare Company launched its year-long Complete Works festival with a day of free events to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday.

Patrick Stewart and Judi Dench helped unveil a giant portrait of the bard, created from 90 small canvases which had been given to participants to paint during the day. Other highlights included a football match between the Montagues and Capulets - the two warring families from Romeo and Juliet. Actors from the RSC’s current production of the play attempted to settle the ancient grudge with a five-a-side game.

The festival will feature 23 RSC shows, 17 international productions and 14 by UK-based companies and will mark the first time that all of Shakespeare’s plays and poems have been staged at the same event.

The season will also see the return of RSC founder Peter Hall and former RSC stalwarts Ian McKellen, Stewart and Dench.

Meanwhile, Sheffield Theatre’s artistic director Sam West will bring his new company to Stratford for the first time with its production of As You Like It and Cheek by Jowl will perform its all-male Russian version of Twelfth Night.

The season will also feature more unusual interpretations of Shakespeare such as New York-based theatre company Tiny Ninja Theater’s production of Hamlet, which uses an inch-high cast of plastic Ninja figurines to perform.