Happy Birthday Shakespeare

April 23rd is St George's Day - George, the slayer of dragons is offically the patron saint of England. So although the date isn't usually celbrated very actively, today some English people will wear red roses in their buttonholes and some flags of St George - the red cross on the white background - will fly on official buildings.

But unlike St Patrick's Day or the 4th there won't be major marches or fireworks. It will all be pretty low key, even if it's remembered at all.

I've often wondered why some brave Roman soldier who protested against the torture of Christians and died for his beliefs was chosen as the patron saint of a small island far away from Rome. Apparently his popularity stems from the early Crusades when it's said that the soldiers saw St George in a vision and then went on to be victorious.

So George is rarely remembered much but the man who was believed to have been born on St George's Day 1564,well he merits a very different sort of celebration.

William Shakespeare's birthday is generally believed to have been on April 23rd 1564 - though all we really know for sure is that he was christened on April 26th of that year - and traditionally Elizabethan christenings took place 3 days after birth. The big birthday celebrations are held in Stratford on Avon on the Saturday closest to the 23rd - this weekend there will be a procession through the streets, the unfurling of many flags and the laying of floral tributes at Holy Trinity church.

Last year the BM and I spent a wonderful couple of days in Stratford with Anne McAllister and her husband . We visited all the Shakespeare sites - particularly his birthplace right in the centre of the town. And in the evening we went to a brilliant production of 12th Night in the Swan theatre. It was a production that reminded me that not only is Shakespeare remembered because he was a brilliant and prolific dramatist - but also that he had an unerring popular touch.
Not only that but he gave the world some of the greatest romantic couples of all time - Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Othello and Desdemona.

But even in those days, very few of his plots were actually new - they were gathered from other sources, revitalised and rewritten in his own style, to suit his times. That's something I always remember when I'm struggling to find a new plot or to write something different - as Vladimir Propp once said, there are only a limited number of plots in the whole of literature, and all books & plays use those plots and rework them again and again. I thought about this last night as I watched a TV programme celebrating the 40 best romantic movies - all of them reworking the tried and tested themes and creating something just that little bit different every time. And yes, Romeo and Juliet were in there - as was Will Shakespeare's own fictional love story Shakespeare in Love and Ten Things I hate about You is of course based on The Taming of the Shrew written by one W Shakespeare. 40 great films, almost all of which made me want to go out and rent the DVDs and watch them all over again - just as soon as the Spaniard is tweaked into submission. And 40 variations on a set of basic plots that show how, in the hands of a creative writer, the same old same old themes can be revitalised and reworked and appear looking fresh and exciting even if they've been done a hundred times already.

It's like I always tell would-be romance writers. You'll find it almost impossible to be truly original - but what you can be is authentic to you - you can write it your way. Don't copy the greats, look at their plot ideas and make them your own, write them in the way that could only come from you. That's what will give your work that special individual 'voice' that an editor and a reader is looking for.

After all, what Mr Shakespeare did with those limited number of plots is still vivid and alive today, over 400 years later.

Happy Birthday Will!