John Bell has spent over six decades helping Australians see themselves reflected in the works of William Shakespeare, but he frets that cancel culture and an “overcrowded” school curriculum are depriving new generations of the Bard.

The 80-year-old actor and director, who rose from schoolboy Hamlet in Maitland to starring at Stratford-upon-Avon’s Royal Shakespeare Company, formed Bell Shakespeare in 1990 to perform the playwright with a local accent and sensibility, and to champion his work in schools.