Michael Pennington thought he knew the playwright inside out. But when he came to research his one-man show, he was shocked at how much he still had to learn.

At the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, a group of amateur actors play in front of a court audience and rapidly learn that an aristocratic crowd can be the unkindest of all. The cast is under-rehearsed, and probably not much good; heckled, they lose their nerve, and the whole thing threatens to end like the climax of Michael Frayn's Noises Off. Then Thisbe, played by a young bellows mender called Flute, comes upon the dead body of Pyramus: in her grief, she describes his lily lips and his cherry nose, his yellow cowslip cheeks, and wails that his eyes were green as leeks.

Confronted with this language, the sophisticated audience goes quiet, and so does our audience.

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Michael Pennington reflects on the efficacy of trying to teach a love of Shakespeare, which should be freely given, to the very young.

In announcing its manifesto Stand Up For Shakespeare, the RSC is claiming success at teaching Shakespeare to children as young as four.

Now, steady on! It very much depends what you mean by teaching and what you mean by Shakespeare. Reception class kids role-play all the time but I can't think of a single one of Shakespeare's works they could be expected really to grasp, or why they should be troubled with difficult words while they're still trying to sort out their own.

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On the occasion of his performance of Sweet William at the Hampstead Theatre in London, Michael Pennington reflects on the numerous real people he has played on stage.

By next spring, I will have played 10 historical figures in a row. I am currently Shakespeare and Chekhov, in two separate solo shows. I'll be composers Richard Strauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler in a few months time, when Ronald Harwood's Collaboration and Taking Sides arrive in the West End. Already, I've been Mad George III, Oscar Wilde, Bomber Harris, the curator Sydney Cockerell, Charles Dickens and Robert Maxwell. I'm not complaining. I've had the opportunity to enjoy the company of characters I wouldn't have cared to spend an evening with in real life.

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