A project aiming to reconnect communities in Birmingham with the city’s Shakespearean heritage has been boosted by Heritage Lottery funding.
More than £32,000 has been awarded to the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Council to allow them to develop plans for a full funding application.
The Everything to Everybody project will feature a £1million scheme to revive the city’s Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library – the oldest and largest collection of the Bard’s works in any public library in the world.
Organisers say they hope the work will form the centrepiece of a major exhibition and festival marking the city’s cultural and innovation heritage as part of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games celebrations.
The University of Birmingham’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir David Eastwood, said: “We are delighted to lead this landmark project.
“Opening up the Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library will make a real contribution to world culture, while also restoring an important but forgotten historical association between Birmingham and the Bard.”
The Shakespeare Memorial Collection is housed at the Library of Birmingham, but while some items are displayed in the rooftop Shakespeare Memorial Room, most treasures – including artwork by Picasso and Dalí – are shut away in the vaults.
Birmingham City Council’s Cabinet member for education, skills and culture, Cllr Jayne Francis, said: “We’re developing an extensive programme of community-led activities which will help people of all ages and backgrounds rediscover Birmingham’s Shakespeare Library and reinvent it for the future.
“The project will transform the relationship between Shakespeare and the wider region in which he was born, confirming the West Midlands as a world-class Shakespeare centre, with Birmingham’s rich heritage and cultural diversity right at its heart.”