Speaking to you in English

The old music-hall and radio comedian Gillie Potter always began his act-in a parody of BBC technique-with the words 'This is Gillie Potter, speaking to you in English.' Their political edge might be sharper if English were n ot the native language of the audience: that is, in the sort of colonial se tting at which Potter's dress and slightly languid manner hinted. Nowadays, for an English teacher of English who works in Wales, particularly one who se speciality is Shakespeare, it is certainly palpable. Shakespeare's remai ns a master's voice in the Principality; speaking to us in English with a v engeance. The issues at stake most recently surfaced when it was announced in the Welsh Assembly that the Qualifications Curriculum and Assessment Aut hority had recommended that pupils studying English in Wales should not be prescribed any 'compulsory' authors. Evidently, the study of Shakespeare ne ed no longer be mandatory. However, the inclusion of his plays was nonethel ess strongly 'recommended' by the Authority-this of an author, many of whos e works either explicitly or implicitly buttress exactly the structure, the United Kingdom, which the Welsh Assembly systematically brings into questi on. The opportunity to mould Welsh education in English to a distinctive sh ape, decisively different from that of the prevailing template, was thereby almost casually lost. Is it fanciful to suggest that a Welsh 'Eng. Lit.' s yllabus devoid of Shakespeare could have struck a complex blow, not only fo r the unique Welsh version of what has become a world tongue, but at the sa me time against an ill-heeded and misrecognized 'Britishness?' Maybe. After all, the current Prince of Wales, heir apparent and so future guarantor, n o less, of the King's English, has long proclaimed himself a Shakespeare fa n.