Third of teens don’t know Shakespeare wrote plays

ONE third of teenagers do not know that William Shakespeare was a playwright, according to research.

The poll also found that half of state school children have never been to see a play with their teacher and two thirds had never acted in one.

The youngsters were given a list of 13 names, including those of celebrities such as Simon Cowell and Alesha Dixon, and asked to say which were playwrights. A total of 31 per cent were unable to identify Shakespeare as one.

Joanna Read, principal of London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, which conducted the poll among 11 to 18year-olds, said: ‘These statistics are shocking.

‘Half of our children have never been to a play with their school – that figure should be zero,’ she said.