Away for a weekend in Stratford-on-Avon. When H., my ten-year old daughter, asked if she could see a Shakespeare play, where else could I take her but here, and to see nothing less than Hamlet, though an introductory production for young people. It is an outstanding production, H. could barely take her eyes from the action. This is surely the way to inculcate an early love of this finest of Shakespeare’s plays. H. wants to see King Lear next.

Most of my favourite monologues made the production, including:

Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fell of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows aught, what is’t to leave betimes. Let it be.

When H. heard this monologue, she turned and gave me a gentle smile, pleased that she remembered my favourite; a memorable evening.