100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE

April 22, 1922

TODAY is Shakespeare’s birthday; but we have no right, even if we have the inclination, to celebrate the event with rejoicing. It is for England a day of shame when in not one of London’s 50 theatres is a play of his to be seen. Yes one, the ‘Old Vic’, is holding a birthday festival, at which various actors are giving their favourite scenes, and thither must the devotee of our greatest poet repair if he will honour him. We publish today some account of the ‘Old Vic’, where for the past few years it has been possible to find Shakespeare performed. The present time, with the possible exception of the Commonwealth, when all plays were prohibited on moral grounds, stands alone in the history of British drama as a period when no manager will put Shakespeare on the Boards.