Englishness - is it all it's cracked up to be?

ENGLAND IS BACK! The polls show people in England are suddenly feeling more ‘English’ than ‘British’: Telegraph readers, white van men, Billy Bragg...all together getting weepy over the end of The Railway Children.

I too had been feeling this way, changing my address on my headed paper to England rather than United Kingdom, that kind of stuff, and as I had arranged a weekend break in Stratford Upon Avon I looked forward to a bit of good old patriotism – after all that’s what Will Shakespeare was good at right?

The great thing about Stratford is that, yes, Shakespeare was born there, but they don’t like to make a fuss about it. It’s a self-confident little town that knows it has many other attractions. Ha! Only joking – they never shut up about it. All over town, it’s Shakespeare this, Falstaff that. Even the coach station is called The Birthplace Coach Terminal.

It wasn’t always thus. When Shakespeare’s own company, the King’s Men, tipped up in 1622 to perform in a Stratford in the grip of Puritanism, they were paid to go away (as a musician I’ve been there and it’s not nice trust me); the Borough Chamberlain recording in his accounts: ‘To the King’s Players for not playing in the Hall 6/-. But that changed and the rest is history as they say. Ian Ousby likened the 19^th Century town to the medieval catholic church – powered by solemn reverence, blatant hype and bogus relics – and the birthplace became a tourist trap with many writers including Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle scratching their name into the window frame (Scott carved: Byron is a twat).

Having checked into the Shakespeare Hotel and taken a stroll down Shakespeare Street we set off for the Courtyard Theatre where we were seeing Richard II. Once in our seats we eagerly anticipated the rich hit of literary patriotism; Shakespeare is of course English/British (he often melds the two like a yank Tourist) but bagging him up with nationalist sentiment is tricky – being one sided is very much what nationalism is all about whereas plays tend to require a spot of dynamism. So when the government requested a propaganda version of Henry V during WW2 Laurence Olivier had to take out the scenes with English troops being infiltrated by traitors, English soldiers committing war crimes against the French, and Henry shrugging off the nameless dead in his own ranks – plus the general tenor of the play that war is a fruitless waste of life. ‘Loving your work Larry, loving it! But I wonder if we can tweak it a bit by taking some of the central themes and completely reversing them? Yes you still get to ride the horse............’

But one speech does unequivocally stir up ‘we’re the best’ passions: the sceptre isle speech in Richard II “this other Eden..this happy breed of men...this precious stone set in a silver sea..this tophole place that everyone knows deep down is the dogs bollocks” (think that’s how it goes).

According to history Richard II started off well, bashing the hopes of his people by ruthlessly repressing the Peasants Revolt aged just 14. Shakespeare takes up the story when the young Plantagenet had gone to cat-crap with arrogant self regard (seems a bit harsh that, I mean he was king – these days people get arrogant and self-regarding if they know someone who’s met Matt Lucas and David Walliams in their lady costumes) and by having ‘favourites’, history speak for effeminate guys. This performance has him powdered and poncey and just asking to be usurped – the message was clear, England cannot be ruled by somebody who can’t take his ale but can take it up the chuffer. To be honest John of Gaunt’s great speech came and went. We’re not saying people should stand up and cheer at that bit, that would be a bit too much but it does provide one important insight into Englishness; Gaunt follows his ruddy litany by detailing England’s dereliction and shame. He says thanks to Richard, England is now ‘bond in with shame’, the country that had been ‘wont to conquer others/hath made a shameful conquest of itself’. Richard had screwed England so much that its now screwing itself when we all knew it should be screwing other countries!

So, we concluded England has been going to the dogs since at least  1399 which is over 600 years ago – and that’s a lot of dogs. Afterwards we headed for a curry at the Thespians Indian Restaurant – happily there were no thespians in it.

Think I’ll change my address back to United Kingdom – seems the right thing to do...............