March 26, 2023

Sunday Feature - Shakespeare's Brum Ting

13 minutes

Over a century ago, in 1881, the city of Birmingham purchased a copy of Shakespeare's first folio. It was to be the crown jewel of their new Shakespeare library, the brainchild of the first librarian George Dawson. From the outset it was to be the People's Folio, the property of the city's Free library. You can find the evidence stamped in red ink on many of the pages. That might seem like a defacement to some, but to Shakespeare scholar Islam Issa and members of the city's 'Everything to Everybody' project, it shows a profound commitment.

In this feature Islam draws together the passion and belief of George Dawson and his fellow city fathers - Birmingham became a city in 1889 - with the voices and opinions of Birmingham today as expressed by people like the internationally acclaimed street artist Mohammed Ali. He's produced two school murals that have the Folio at the heart of the city's sense of itself.

In the afterglow of the Commonwealth Games and the realisation that Birmingham's strength lies in its multi-cultural population, Islam points out that rather than some distant evidence of an elite and unfamiliar past, the time has come for the Folio to be celebrated from Sparkbrook to the Bullring and beyond.

Producer: Tom Alban

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