This week, the Shakespeare Quartos Archive has lined up a real treat for Shakespeare enthusiasts. They have collated all 32 surviving quarto editions of Hamlet in a free online archive.

This new venture enables you to compare Hamlet online and annotate high-quality page reproductions without the need to source copies from the greatest libraries around the world.

I think that this venture, led by the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, is a fantastic new resource in the arsenal of Shakespeare scholarship. Access to original manuscripts is often perceived as near impossible - that barrier has now been removed.

I hope that the accessibility that this new project affords will inspire a new generation of Shakespeare scholars and inspire new studies of Hamlet.

Photo © British Library

When a big-name Hollywood celebrity returns to the stage, it's always a risk. Jude Law has taken the biggest risk by playing Shakespeare's most complex and multi-faceted character, Hamlet.

Well, it seems that Jude Law's risk has paid off with the production becoming an official Broadway hit. Last week, it was revealed that his $2.5 million production of Hamlet is in profit after less than a three-month run at the Broadhurst Theater in New York.

I think that high-profile productions like this are important because they connect with new audiences like never before. Already, Jude Law has attracted hundreds of young audience members and exposed them to Shakespeare for the first time.

Also, it's heart-warming to see Shakespeare become a huge commercial success on Broadway.

The production runs until 6 December 2009 - Have you seen it? Do you rate Jude Law's Hamlet? Share your reviews here for other theater goers.

Photo © Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images

Last week, the UK government barred state schools from offering a new IGCSE qualification because it would allow students to opt out of studying Shakespeare.

I think that the very idea that an entire generation of students could leave school without being exposed to Shakespeare at all is terrifying. The study of Shakespeare forges a link with our culture, our history, our heritage and our language - factors that will give the adults of tomorrow a solid grounding in life.

The importance of Shakespeare in our schools was expressed perfectly by Jacqui O'Hanlon, director of education at the Royal Shakespeare Company, in her letter to the Guardian this weekend:

There is a reason why Shakespeare is the only compulsory writer on the secondary English curriculum ... we know that when students engage actively with the plays, when they are up on their feet saying the words and making choices about character motivation and setting, they are also exploring living dilemmas about democracy, leadership, family loyalty, love and power. They increase their confidence, self-esteem and communication skills in the process.

Can we really study the English language without Shakespeare? I think not because his writing provides the essential context to our modern language and his influence pervades our every word.

Let's keep our children exposed to Shakespeare.

Photo © NYPL Digital Gallery

Should the tourist industry fund repairs to Holy Trinity Church? This building has been the subject of my blog for some weeks now and finally the tourist industry has taken a proactive step in the right direction.

A group of 34 travel agents from the US have donated $200 towards the vital repair work needed to keep Shakespeare's final resting place open to the public. The money was originally raised by the Anne Hudgins Shakespeare Class.

Of course, many other tourists have already donated to the church by paying the small fee to see the Bard's grave when touring Shakespeare's Stratford.

Like it or not, it seems that a large proportion of the bill will be picked up by the tourist industry in one way or another.

If you would like to save Shakespeare's final resting place, then donations can be made online to The Friends of Shakespeare's Church. Simply visit www.shakespeareschurch.org.

I was appalled to learn that a company of Shakespeare actors was jeered off stage by drunks during an open air performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona in Tunbridge Wells, UK.

The Pantiles Players has been performing Shakespeare on a local bandstand since World War Two, but have now decided to cancel the project following a barrage of abuse from drunks at a nearby pub. The actors have finally had enough of being jeered at by idiots saying that they "look gay" in their Shakespearean costume.

The free community performances have been disrupted since England introduced a smoking ban in public places, forcing smokers at the nearby pub out onto the street of Tunbridge Wells.

I know that Shakespeare isn't for everyone, but where's the community spirit? Although I can't vouch for the quality of the performance, I suspect that this reaction to Shakespeare is more common than we'd like to think. I've sat a few times in theaters with restless idiots behind me ruining the performance.

At the risk of opening a can of worms, I'd like to hear about your Shakespeare horror stories. Has the utter disrespect or a sad lack of interest on someone else's part ever ruined a Shakespeare performance for you?

This year I keep returning to Shakespeare's final resting place, Holy Trinity Church, to report on how money can be found to repair the historic building and save it from closure.

In my blog last month, I raised the issue that Shakespeare himself was responsible for financing repairs to Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon because he bought tithe land on condition that the Shakespeare family finance all future repairs.

I casually discussed this as if it were an archaic and unenforceable law - but, the last few weeks have proved that this is not the case.

A few miles away from Holy Trinity Church is St John the Baptist Church in the village of Aston Cantlow. It is believed that Shakespeare's parents were married there because the family home of Shakespeare's mother is nearby.

An ancient covenant required the owners of a local Grade II-listed farmhouse to pay for the upkeep of the Chancel. After loosing a 20-year legal battle with the Church of England, they have been forced to auction their home to fund £230,000 worth of repairs.

Since the auction took place last week, the story has divided opinion in the UK. What's your reaction? Who should fund these repairs? Is this a "necessary evil" to protect the UK's architectural history? Or is there something very un-Christian about the church's actions?

The key mysteries that surround the authorship of Shakespeare's plays has perplexed and enraged scholars for centuries. And now, Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, has drained all passion out of the debate.

Did Shakespeare ever collaborate? Did Shakespeare write the unattributed play about Edward III (published in 1596 when Shakespeare was 31)? All questions that fire the heart of any Shakespeare enthusiast.

In a less passionate moment, Vickers fed the text of Edward III into a computer designed to detect plagiarism and clicked "Go". A few moments later, the results collated in his printer tray as if the centuries of debate had never happened.

The result? Yes, Shakespeare did write Edward III because there are close matches with the phrases used in Shakespeare's early works. Rather more interestingly, the results also proved that the Bard collaborated with Thomas Kyd, best known for The Spanish Tragedy, a play known to have influenced Shakespeare.

About 40 per cent of the play was written by Shakespeare, while the other 60 per cent was contributed by Kyd.

In truth, I felt a little deflated when I read this story. I much prefer the debate, the passion and the mystery ... a computer print out just doesn't do it for me. Ah, well! There goes scholarship!

In an effort to conclude our current debate on whether or not Americans can do Shakespeare, I'd like to reflect on an unrelated letter that recently appeared in the New York Times Magazine.

Andrew Charig commented on the corruption of language:

In Error-Proof, Ammon Shea suggests invoking Chaucer and Shakespeare as a defense against criticisms of bad grammar because they used so many obsolete forms that almost any error can be found among their works. But Shakespeare wrote before English was standardized; Chaucer before it was English at all.

I think this hammers home the point that Shakespeare's English is not our English - neither that of the UK nor the USA. Rather, Shakespeare's influence is buried with equal depth in both accents. And of course, the wide range of regional accents in both countries must surely highlight the impossibility of attaching a specific dialect to Shakespeare's language.

Perhaps what English people mean when they say "Americans can't do Shakespeare" is "we don't the idea of foreigners doing it!" ... That said, I don't know what Nicolas Cage's excuse is!

... or perhaps we can agree to disagree?

Last week I reported Nicolas Cage's comment that the American accent is not suited to Shakespeare - this week I found the perfect counter-argument.

I was pleased to find a story in The Telegraph over the weekend that blows Cage's theory out of the water. Trevor Nunn, possibly one of the most authoritive voices on Shakespeare in Performance as former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, said that he wants to direct an all-American Shakespeare production because he believes the accent to be "closer" to the Elizabethan dialect of Shakespeare's day.

Nunn said:

I very much want to do Shakespeare with American actors using their own accents because there is a different energy and a different use of language. Some people mock this idea, but it is almost certainly true that today's American accent is closer to the sounds that Shakespeare heard when he was writing.

Exactly how he knows this is beyond me - perhaps it just goes to show how subjective the entire "accent debate" is. As I argued before, a good performance comes from the actor's physical engagement with Shakespeare's language ... the accent is irrelevant.

Do you agree with Nunn's comment? Could the American accent really be closer to the speech patterns of Shakespeare's day? Vote in our poll and let your voice (regardless of accent) be heard.

Actor, Nicolas Cage, recently said that he was distrustful of Americans attempting Shakespeare because it doesn't sound right. He said:

I'm one of those people that feels Americans should not do Shakespeare. There is something about it. I feel the rhythm of the English language and manner of English speech seem to work effectively with William Shakespeare but when Americans do it, something seems stuck.

But hold on! In England, we don't go around spouting Shakespearean verse. It's a learned thing - something that requires training. Both modern English and American are equally as divorced from the rhythmic, verbal culture of Elizabethan England - and solid actor training is required to reconnect the performer with Shakespeare's language.

I recently interviewed the RSC's voice coach, Lyn Darnley, who noted that "we're much less engaged with language now. Speech is less engaged. We don't speak with the same muscularity, energy or dynamic like people did before there was a visual back up for communication."

What do you think? Do you agree with Cage? Should American's steer clear of Shakespeare?

Photo © Getty Images / Malcolm Taylor