The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has appointed Fido PR to manage a public affairs and PR brief for a new national education and culture campaign entitled ‘Shakespeare Week’ which is to go live on 17 March 2014, to coincide with and celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.
Fido has been tasked with helping to manage the launch publicity for the Week and subsequently to stimulate both political cross party support for the initiative and to engage primary schools and encourage arts and cultural organisations to get involved in delivering cultural content to enhance the campaign.
The key audience for Shakespeare Week is the UK’s primary school population which numbers around 3 million.
It is hoped that this campaign will become an annual initiative following the inaugural year in 2014.
Primary school teachers will have access to new online resources and pupils at participating schools will receive a ‘Passport to Shakespeare’ that will encourage these pupils and, it is hoped their families, to go on to explore their cultural heritage beyond the classroom at their local museums, galleries, theatres, concert halls, libraries and historical places.
The Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, has lent his support to the campaign: “Shakespeare’s language is our language. It is our inheritance. Through Shakespeare Week, many pupils will have the chance to share and enjoy this inheritance. I am very grateful for the fantastic work being done by the organisers of Shakespeare Week.”
Laura Sullivan of Fido told Prolific North that the agency had had to submit recommendations for the contract but that the work had been referred to the Manchester agency on the back of its earlier work managing various cultural projects in Shropshire and she added that Fido had also previously worked with the Trust’s PR manager in a different capacity, when she was employed by the RHS.
