Published at 11:48, Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Who said Shakespeare was boring? Certainly not these excited youngsters, who crammed Carlisle’s Sands Centre for a fun-filled performance of Romeo and Juliet on Friday.

Just the ticket: Schoolchildren at the Sands Centre at Romeo and Juliet. But shouldn’t trips like this be a regular occurrence in Cumbria?

Touring theatre company Shakespeare 4 Kids brought its child-friendly version of the tragic tale of starstruck lovers to the city to spark youthful interest in the Bard’s work.

And if the faces of pupils from 20 Cumbrian schools are any reflection, it sure did that much.

Such is the power of a theatre experience – too often underestimated and far too frequently dismissed as unnecessary or irrelevant, when recklessly dumped in times of financial squeezing.

Introduce the arts – particularly the performing arts – to children early enough and the richness of return is immeasurable. Imaginations open, horizons widen. Somewhere a switch is flicked to make anything possible beyond the perceived limits of the here and now.

Well done Carlisle for securing this chance for kids to taste the pure magic of cultural inspiration through full-blooded, edge-of-seat, laughing, crying, cheering, jeering entertainment.

It’s more than we old fogies were offered at school. Most of us were taught Shakespeare as a collection of dry old texts, laboured over by teachers bored to tears themselves by works they could barely be bothered to understand, never mind relish.

How many of us studied for and passed an English Literature A-level, with Romeo and Juliet as one of our set books, accepting from mistaken, misguided teachers that “wherefore” meant “where”– not “why”?

How many suffered from a blinkered view that if we never saw a performance of the wonderfully moving, cautionary story of violent consequences in gang warfare, tribalism, family feuding and meaningless division, we’d really miss not much at all... so long as we read the book.

Those Cumbrian children who had such a good time last week, know better than we did at their age, that Shakespeare is to be seen – not read – that his messages are as relevant in their day as they were in his own and that there is no topping a theatre experience for exciting and enthralling with a damned good yarn, rip-roaringly told.

Look at those faces again and ask does Carlisle need a dedicated, fit for fabulous purpose theatre? You bet it does.

Should a city this size – a regional focal point no less – be making do and mending with a doubling up sports hall? No way.

Are we all the poorer for a penny-pinching nodding acquaintanceship with performing arts? It’s more than likely that we are.

A wholehearted engagement with the arts, in all its wildly imaginative forms, enlivens and enriches in ways few other shared experiences can hope to achieve. And whether we like to admit it or not, we’re a duller bunch without it.

Take one more look at the faces of the kids on this page and ask again: Does Carlisle owe this and future generations of young people a purpose built theatre and a glorious experience of all performance has to offer?

Of course it does.

Denial of that need might well save a pound or two in the shorter term of credit crunching.

But in the longer term, what’s lost to Cumbrians will cost us more dearly.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk