'There’s so many questions we’d like to ask you, Will'

HISTORIAN Michael Wood addressed William Shakespeare directly during his speech at the annual Birthday Luncheon.

Mr Wood presided over the prestigious event that was attended this year by some 650 people.

After welcoming the guest, he said: "Most of all welcome to you, Will.

"I know you’ll be embarrassed by all this fuss but it is your birthday and my job is to put something into words what we all feel about you.

"It’s 452 years since your birth and 400 since you died , although I use the term ‘die’ very loosely because, of course, you didn’t really die at all.

"You’re still here, you still have us in stitches, you still make our hair stand on end and still bring us to tears.

"And the funny thing about it is you are the ever-living poet, as old Tom Thorpe called you.

"Far from being fixed by your texts that you left us, you’re still unpredictable, still always on the move, teasing us, surprising us. playing games and, above all, even in the darkest moments, making us laugh. Humour, comedy was your real bent wasn’t it Will?

"There’s so many questions we’d like to ask you, Will, about your art of course, but about your life to, you know the boy, the girl, the wife, the bed!

"And what about the grievous bodily harm case in 1596? And who was Anne Lee, and what were you doing with her? And in Southwick of all places!

"But the thing is Will, you were always somebody who held his cards close to his chest.

"You say so yourself in one of those sugared sonnets among your private friends: 'How careful I was when I took my way, each trifle of the truest bars to thrust, locked up within the closure of my breast'.

"You said that Will. So it’s pointless, I know, to try and ‘pluck out the hearts of your mystery’, as you would say.

"So I think as the cakes and ale are served we’ll just sit at the table and bask in your glow as we all do.

"But one last thing, you never tell us what to think do you Will? We like that.

"Bill Wilder, in his ten tips on how to make a movie, says: 'Don’t tell them everything. Let the audience put two and two together, and they’ll love you forever and we will Will, we will."