I owe my love of Shakespeare to my father for whom the bard was his lodestar. The first clue is in my names: Rosalind Beatrice! He had an amazing memory and I realise now how I absorbed so much of Shakespeare’s texts by osmosis as I was growing up. Bringing me a cup of tea in the morning and drawing back the curtains, he would say ‘Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe n the mist mountaintop’. Days were peppered with such quotes.  

We loved in Lymington where my father was a solicitor. He was vert excited about the direction the Peter Hall took the RSC in 60s so, undaunted by the length of the journey to Stratford, which was always 4 to 5 hours, he would drive us to see the matinee performance and then drive us home afterwards! Thus, in 1965, we saw David Warner’s ground breaking Hamlet. David wandered around the stage trailing a long scarf like an angst ridden student. I was 19 and for the first time I truly recognised that Shakespeare related to me. I could totally understand those amazing speeches and I remember walking out of the theatre feeling my head was going to explode! And that feeling has never left me! In 1970 my father took us to see Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Nights Dream. A white box trapezes and plate swinging and costumes of brilliantly coloured silks. Thrilling and joyful! The brilliant Alan Howard was Oberon/Theseus. Conventional interpretation of Shakespeare were blown away and that surely allowed subsequent director the freedom to experiment, to push the boundaries and delight us all as they continue to do so.