Shakespeare Birthplace Trust vows to stay ‘radical’ amid decolonisation row

The chief executive of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has vowed to continue taking an “absolutely radical” approach to inclusivity following media criticism for a project exploring the impact of empire on its collections.

Rachael North, who has held the role on an interim basis since 2024, said she had been “really shocked” by the level of online abuse that the coverage had prompted towards her and some trustees. 

But she insisted that the organisation will not dilute its focus on making its collections accessible and inclusive, saying the project had been misrepresented by a “headline-driven media response”.

The controversy arose after The Sunday Telegraph reported on the trust’s work on “decolonising” its collections, with a number of other publications following up with negative coverage.

The Spectator accused the trust of “arrant, knavish nonsense” and The Sun described the initiative as “fresh woke madness”.

‘Impact of colonialism’

The trust manages five properties where Shakespeare or members of his family lived – including his birthplace – in Stratford-upon-Avon, and holds more than a million objects relating to the playwright’s life and work.

The Sunday Telegraph reported on a current project funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation which the trust says is exploring “the impact of empire on our understanding and interpretation of objects in our world-class collections”.

It involves working with researchers, artists and community participants from South Asian diaspora communities in the West Midlands.

The project aims to “uncover the hidden stories linked to specific objects and re-examine what they can teach us about the impact of colonialism on our perception of history of the world and the role Shakespeare’s work has played as part of this”, according to the trust.

The Sunday Telegraph also highlighted research by Helen Hopkins, an academic at Birmingham City University, which has informed the trust’s decolonisation work.

Hopkins worked with the trust to write a PhD thesis, published in 2022, “analysing and critiquing the SBT’s… responses to its international collection”. 

Following this, she received funding from the National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange (NCACE) to produce a series of reports translating her doctorate’s academic recommendations “into positive and achievable actions with clear objectives, methods, and timelines”.

The reports reflected a need to “recognise the role Shakespeare has been forced to play in establishing and upholding imperialistic narratives of  cultural supremacy”, according to a blog Hopkins wrote for NCACE in December 2022.

A further aim was to “purge the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s interpretative policies and brand narratives of Anglocentric and colonialist thought”.

North stressed that the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation project was “not focusing on Shakespeare as a man, as a writer” but was “looking at the history and the impact of our museum collection”.

Work with community groups

The project was awarded £70,200 by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation in December 2023, but a spokesperson for the museum said it had “evolved over the past year”.

North said that The Sunday Telegraph’s coverage “came out of the blue” and wasn’t prompted by any particular announcement.

She said that the project’s work is “ongoing” and is being “led by community groups as to how we might want to think about evolving our interpretation of [our] collection.”

North said these groups are “not necessarily interested in taking post-colonial perspectives on our collection”.

But “they are really interested in thinking about how some of the translations that we have of Shakespeare in our collection represent their language today, for instance”.

North said she had been “really shocked” by the intensity of the “really negative and really critical dialogue” that had taken place in the media following The Sunday Telegraph’s report.

“We should, in this day and age, be able to have sensible critical debate that doesn’t go to that kind of extreme so quickly,” said North.

Online abuse

She said that the coverage had prompted abuse of her via a Pinterest account, and that some trustees had also received abuse.

“You’re in the comfort of your own home with your family, and this stuff appears on your phone and it’s vile,” she said.

North said that the “media landscape, widely, probably has changed in the last six to nine months”, adding that “it would be good to get back to a more discursive point where we can genuinely look at actually the work that people are doing”.

She said the recent controversy highlights how words such as ‘decolonisation’ have “become inflammatory”.

“I’d love us to have a debate where we didn’t have to fear talking about it,” she said.

“I don’t feel that we are decolonising William Shakespeare, and that’s not what we’re doing,” she said.

“What we are doing is understanding our collections and archives within the context of the impact of empire over many years.”

“There’s a feeling that we are somehow toppling William Shakespeare. We are the organisation that celebrates William Shakespeare. We are the home of William Shakespeare. We think he’s great.”

Hopkins’ reports drew attention to the part of the trust’s collection which relates to the Bengali poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore, including a bust of him in the garden of Shakespeare’s Birthplace.

According to Hopkins, the research highlighted “the ways in which interpretation to date has prioritised Shakespeare’s value as a cultural figure over Tagore’s”.

But North said “that’s not necessarily the angle we’re taking… We are not reflecting on the relative merits of any poetry. We are simply saying, let’s enjoy the fact that we have these connections.”

Last May, the trust held an event to celebrate would have been the 163^rd birthday of Tagore in the Shakespeare’s Birthplace garden. The trust has held a commemorative event for about 30 years, but promised that last year’s would be the “biggest yet”, including a series of musical, theatre and dance performances on a nearby street.

Pointing out that Tagore was inspired by Shakespeare, North said of the event: “Isn’t that keeping Shakespeare alive? Isn’t that saying Shakespeare is still a relevant cultural icon today? That’s not decolonising Shakespeare, that is about a contemporary and relevant community-wide response.”

Many cultural institutions came under pressure to take more radical stances following the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Despite the criticism that the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation project has received, North insisted that there was no need for a course-correction.

‘We should be absolutely radical’

“I think we should be absolutely radical about these things,” she said. “I think we should be radically making sure that our collections are accessible and inclusive to everybody and responding to contemporary debate.

“Museums are contemporary spaces, but what we absolutely should be doing as museum professionals is being led by those communities themselves, not running our own agenda.”

She added that the museum sector needs to “hold our nerves and keep going and keep doing the work that we do.

“I’m genuinely proud of the work that we’re doing,” she said.

“As a sector, we are really clear that this work is absolutely core to what we do. Understanding our collections, making those collections inclusive.”

Asked whether the controversy would change the trust’s approach at all, she said: “We will reflect on all of this, of course, but the bottom line is we’re really confident in the work that we’re doing, so we will continue to do it.”