“Everything that has been happening to us in the past few years of upheaval – mass disease, concerns about immigration, protest, conflict in Europe, a growing desire to challenge authority and speak truth to power – was also happening in 1623 when the First Folio was published.

In 1623 English migrants were going in boats across the sea to build a new life in North America. There was an outbreak of plague. Europe was entrenched in the Thirty Years War. And the ongoing explosion of trade, immigration and diplomacy meant that news of global events would have reached Shakespeare’s ears faster and faster. Just as today the 24-hour news cycle has us feeling our global neighbours are closer than ever, so it must have felt for Shakespeare 400 years ago.

Now, as then, society is deeply divided. The parallels are uncanny and Shakespeare’s words are fresher now than ever before in their ability to speak powerfully to our own contemporary lives.”