David Cameron tells us that St George’s day has been “overlooked for too long” and suggest we should “celebrate what it is to be English”. I intended to do this with a list of the movie dragons. But there is another celebration today. William Shakespeare’s birthday. Dates are kind of shaky, but it is believed that he was born 450 years ago in Stratford-upon-Avon (about 30 miles from where I live) and died 52 years later.

I could easily list the best or my favourite movies adapted from his plays, there are currently 997 films, TV shows and shorts based on works. but there is a more interesting question: What will be remembered in 450 years time? Shakespeare wrote plays intended for public performance over 300 years before the first motion picture, they existed for all that time on paper and in countless performances on stage. The fact that his…