Mirren: Shakespeare schools shake-up unbelievably exciting

DAME Helen Mirren says she is thrilled to see the curtain rise on the Royal Shakespeare Company's new curriculum aimed at transforming how the Bard is taught in secondary schools.

- BY HANNAH ROBERTS

The Oscar-winning actress, 80, who appeared alongside Sir Ian McKellen, 86, at a launch event in London, said: "To me, and Ian, I am sure, it is so unbelievably exciting to see there is a new initiative to bring Shakespeare so thrillingly, sexily, violently - all the good stuff - to life."

Dame Helen joined the theatre company in the 1960s and has performed in stagings of Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, Hamlet and more. She said: "I was very lucky, because when I was about 15 I was taken to see a production of Hamlet, and I fell in love with Shakespeare just like that.