Celebrating the works of Shakespeare and showcasing unique productions from around the world, York International Festival educates the public on the Bard’s work and legacy.

Shakespeare has had a huge cultural impact on the world. Phillip Parr is the festival director, who chooses which companies and artists to showcase.

So why Shakespeare?

“The realisation that Shakespeare is, I guess, the playwright that resonates most in so many countries around the world and has a place in so many different cultures. I think as a practising artist, as a director, I’ve learnt more about Shakespeare by watching it in productions that are not in English, that take enormous liberties. I think we talk a lot in the international Shakespeare world about the fact that Shakespeare becomes our common language. We all speak Hamlet. We all speak Romeo and Juliet, but we’ll then approach it differently, but find common points of communication.”

The Festival includes works from eight different countries, from across Europe and from the United States.

Phillip says : “artists are open to the idea building enduring conversations and relationships that might lead to other work, to shared work, to artists traveling to see other work or be part of it.”

So why York?

When the festival began, Phillip explains that York was chosen as it was big enough and has a strong enough theatre population and a good number of theatres too. “A lot of actors here are making interesting work… and help make something that’s relatively small actually have some weight and some meaning.”

Also, York is special because it has been involved in all the time periods that Shakespeare has ever written about for example the Roman Plays and the middle ages period with monarchs like Richard III or Henry IV.

The Director, Philip Parr also talked about how important the arts is and how relevant Shakespeare is as well as his universal appeal as he was a very pragmatic and clever writer. This is evident in the character of the Duke in Measure for Measure, “he has to leave his country because he’s created a mess. So he leaves it to somebody else to run and then sneaks back in to watch how they do it and then turns up at the end and says, oh, I can fix everything.”

Click below for the full interview with Philip Parr :

I attended an performance of Shakespeare`s 'The Taming of the Shrew' by the Romanian Cultural Institute at Friargate Theatre. It was a creative reimagining of the play and really changed the controversial elements to be more intuitive, which can be seen with them making Katharine or Kate`s monologue on how women should behave and act into a cabaret-esque performance.

This makes the character Petruchio question his love for Kate and makes him see a different side to her.

The entire play within a play essentially revolves around false identities and playing someone you are forced to be.

In the words of Phillip “those stories don’t go away. They’re about love and sadness and war and challenge and distress and people’s relationships and the way that they should work and be together.”