I first visited Stratford in the Summer of 1968 on a school visit - Gill Burgess, Bronze Patron

I first visited Stratford in the Summer of 1968 on a school visit; it was the post-exams treat for the A level English Lit (Othello and Antony and Cleopatra) group and we stayed for 2 nights at the local youth hostel. We saw Eric Porter’s Faustus on the first evening, followed by Janet Suzman’s Rosalind the following night. When I came upon the playbill a dozen or so years later I couldn’t believe how famous most of the cast had become! I don’t think I visited again until I had a young family and, desperate for a break from child rearing, my husband and I would treat ourselves to a trip to the RST - a 4 hour round trip but well worth it when we had parents visiting to do the babysitting - finishing up with a late supper before tackling the journey home. There was a very memorable occasion at the beginning of 1988 when we decided to celebrate my husband’s birthday (on Twelfth Night!) by watching the final night of the run of Twelfth Night with Harriet Walter and Antony Sher. Whilst obviously a brilliant production, it will always be memorable because, after a lovely Chinese supper, the car broke down on the edge of Henley-in-Arden. Several hours of a January night later, we were rescued by the AA and managed to get back to Cheshire before the kids woke up! One of the compensations of age has been the ability to come to Stratford several times a year - and stay overnight, thank goodness! We have seen so many amazing productions that it seems unfair to single out particular ones, though the amount of blood swilling around the last production of The Duchess of Malfi does kind of stick in my head, possibly not for the right reasons. Much as we have loved Talking Shakespeare and the other online offerings during Covid, I can’t wait to come back and I’m sure that the first visit this year will be something to remember.