Why Shakespeare vs TikTok should lead to better drama for us all
Kenneth Brannagh says competing against short videos means actors will have to ‘work harder to earn the audience's attention’
A criticism of the ‘TikTok generation’ – as young people are sometimes disparagingly called – is that they have the attention-span of the equally maligned goldfish. Mostly, this is framed as very much their problem.
So, for example, after one Oxford University English professor complained today’s undergraduates could barely read one novel in three weeks, instead of three in one week as previously, headlines thundered about dumbing down Britain etc.
However, actor Kenneth Brannagh, speaking on his return to the Royal Shakespeare Company, has turned the matter on its head, saying that competing against short videos meant actors would have to “work harder to earn the audience's attention”.
He remembered a school trip to watch Romeo and Juliet when he was 13, the noise and “flashing steel” of a sword fight and the “hormones and testosterone... absolutely flying around the place” during the romantic scenes. “That story came and grabbed us by the throat, and for me it was a life-changer,” Branagh said.
So maybe just maybe, the TikTok generation might actually raise our standards, not lower them, by demanding that drama is, well, simply more dramatic.
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