The Stage:

Announcing the app, McKellen claimed too many people experience Shakespeare’s plays for the first time when they read the scripts, and are therefore not enjoying them as they were intended.

Giving a talk at the BFI in London, the actor said Shakespeare’s works are “meant to be heard”, explaining: “It’s always a bother to me that so many people meet Shakespeare not in the theatre, not even on the screen, but on the page.”

He continued: “I think to give somebody unfamiliar with reading the text a Shakespeare play to enjoy is as daft as giving them the score of a Mozart piano concerto. You can read it, but you can’t hear it.”

McKellen makes a great point. I read Shakespeare in High School English and, while I enjoyed it, it wasn’t until I heard it on stage and in film that I really appreciated the beauty of Shakespeare’s language. Looking forward to seeing this on the App Store on April 23 – the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.