The ‘Everything to Everybody: Your Shakespeare, Your Culture’ exhibition is curated by the RSC on behalf of the ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival. The Folio will visit more locations in 2023. The tour continues through to October with stops at a range of locations including the Black Country Living Museum, Sense Touchbase Pears, Selly Manor, Highbury Hall, Gap Arts and The Hive in the Jewellery Quarter. The First Folio Tour will begin at Sutton Coldfield Library, as part of FOLIO Sutton Coldfield’s celebration of William Shakespeare’s birthday on the 23 April. Yes, Birmingham! The world’s first great people’s Shakespeare library - literally next door to The Rep - belongs to everyone in the City, and Shakespeare and his works are now being brought to life for everyone by the brilliant ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project.”Īt the film premiere, the ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project announced its forthcoming First Folio Tour and its part in the Birmingham 2022 Festival, the major exhibition: ‘Everything to Everybody: Your Shakespeare, Your Culture’. Adrian and Frank proved to be a natural double act, and their presence has made everyone start to understand the incredible untold story of Shakespeare and Birmingham. Sean Foley, Artistic Director of The Rep and Shakespeare’s Coming Home commented: “Creating ‘Shakespeare's Coming Home' was a real partnership between ourselves at The Rep, our amazing community cast, the RSC and of course Adrian Lester and Frank Skinner. “Over the course of the rest of the year, we’ll be bringing the first Folio to a venue near you, and inviting you to one of the exciting exhibitions of this Commonwealth Games year, at our home in the fabulous Library of Birmingham.” Thanks to Artistic Director Sean Foley, its special guest stars, its fabulous community cast, the brilliant Birmingham Rep and the mighty Royal Shakespeare Company, it’s the perfect promo for the ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project. Professor Ewan Fernie, Project Director of the ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project and Chair of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham, said: “Shakespeare’s Coming Home was filmed on the verge of lockdown in 2020 and it’s such a pleasure to be able to share it at last with the people of this great city. In ‘Shakespeare’s Coming Home’ Frank Skinner is incredulous, “Shakespeare? In Birmingham?” to which Adrian Lester responds: “Birmingham was and is home to the first great Shakespeare Library in the world, established in 1884, and it remains the largest Shakespeare Collection held in any public library anywhere.” The only First Folio in the world bought as a vision of comprehensive culture, bought for the people of Birmingham, it is stamped ‘free libraries of Birmingham’ and was part of the Council’s aim to provide accessible education for all citizens, not just those from wealthy backgrounds. The film opens with actor Adrian Lester and comedian Frank Skinner introducing the viewer to Birmingham’s 1623 First Folio. The film triumphantly demonstrates the power of Shakespeare to leap off the page and directly address our contemporary lives and moment. Shakespeare’s Coming Home sees pages from Shakespeare’s First Folio fly into Birmingham Rep and the Library of Birmingham as an intergenerational cast – made up of volunteers from The Rep’s various learning and participation projects - perform the ‘seven ages of man’ with scenes from across Shakespeare’s plays incorporating different languages and British Sigh Language.

The film was created during 2020 and features an intergenerational community cast, as well as special guests Adrian Lester and Frank Skinner to celebrate Birmingham’s uniquely democratic Shakespeare heritage. The ‘ Everything to Everybody’ Project has joined with partners The Rep and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) for the premiere screening of Shakespeare’s Coming Home. Ewan Fernie and Geraldine Collinge with the First Folio at the launch of Shakespeare's Coming Home.

Published 8 March 2022 From left: Cllr Jayne Francis, Sean Foley, Prof.

Uva shakespeare first folio