The British Shakespeare Company was a British open-air touring Shakespeare Company. Founded by Robert J. Williamson in 1994 (as the R. J. Williamson Company), it was renamed in 2005. Originally based in Leeds (performing in the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey), the company later established Shakespeare festivals for Brighton, Nottingham, The Kew Gardens, Cannizaro Park in Wimbledon and Holland Park Theatre in central London.
The company produced two of Shakespeare's most commercially popular plays each year from 1994 to 2007, totalling over 700 performances, usually featuring household names from film, television and stage. These have included James Alexandrou from EastEnders, Pierce Brosnan's actor son Sean, the dancer and performer Wayne Sleep, and the comedian Norman Pace. The 2007 shows, Henry V and As You Like It toured Norway, Windsor, Leeds and Oxford. In 2008 the company performed A Midsummer Night's Dream for two nights at Arundel Castle.
The company's last tour in 2009 starred Mark Arden, Louisa Lytton, Daniela Lavender,David Davies, Gabriel Thomson, Steven Blakeley and Robert J. Williamson. The company performed Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This was the BSC's largest tour, commencing at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, Trinity College, Dublin, Ramme Gaard in Norway, before visiting Gawsworth Hall in Cheshire, Norwich Cathedral, Kentwell Hall in Suffolk, Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds, Burgrave Palace in Prague, Sterts Theatre in Cornwall and Arundel Castle in West Sussex. Since this tour there has been no further activity by the company.
From 2006, when the company began performing at Ramme Gaard, an ecological estate with an outdoor amphitheatre on the coast of Norway, the Norwegian billionaire and philanthropist Petter Olsen was its patron.
Famous quotes containing the words british, shakespeare and/or company:
“It’s like the Beatles coming together again—let’s hope they don’t go on a world tour.”
—Matt Frei, British journalist. Quoted in Listener (London, June 21, 1990)
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)