APPG on Shakespeare
I am the Chair of the APPG on Shakespeare.
The group aims to promote the influence and legacy of William Shakespeare. Our members include organisations, artists, academics and parliamentarians with a shared passion for Shakespeare.
Our Secretariat is the Shakespeare Institute, in particular Professor Michael Dobson and Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall.
Our inaugural meeting of this parliament was in November 2024, during which we elected out officers and Chair, staged performances and discussed upcoming projects. The minutes are available on the APPG's website.
We held our second meeting in June 2025, on the theme of ‘Shakespeare - International Influence’. Please read the minutes of the meeting on our Secretariat's webpage for details of our discussion. At this meeting we agreed to write to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to request action from the Government to remove the impediments that make it hard for artistic groups to tour. We also agreed to engage with the British Council, to request a new investigation, along the lines of their 2012 report into Shakespeare education worldwide, carried out jointly with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
We are now looking to hold and inquiry into Shakespeare and education.