THE artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Michael Boyd, has warned against Scotland "turning its back" on Shakespeare if it becomes independent.

In an exclusive interview with The Herald, Mr Boyd, a former artistic director of the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, noted that Ireland's theatrical world rejected Shakespeare after Irish independence in 1922, and said he hopes an independent Scotland would not be "self defeating" and do the same.

However, two of Scotland's leading academics – Professor Tom Devine and Professor Willy Maley – expressed doubt at the suggestion, with Mr Maley arguing that Shakespeare could actually benefit from an independent Scotland.

Mr Boyd, who is delivering a lecture on the future of theatre in Glasgow this week, conceded that Shakespeare's depiction of Scotland left a lot to be desired.

He said: "It's understandable of both the Scots and the Irish to turn their back on Shakespeare, given his pathetic attempts to portray Scottishness and Irishness in his plays.

"[Their depiction is] almost worse than the French, because at least the French get a lot of air time, and flounce around in nice costumes while behaving very badly."

Mr Boyd, who is leaving the RSC towards the end of this year, was asked whether productions of the definitive English playwright may be less popular in an independent Scotland.

He said: "The Irish did turn their back on Shakespeare for more than half a century. Partly, as a newly re-emerged nation, they were defining themselves against their imperial past, but it has been a drastic impoverishment of Irish theatre, that Irish theatre is now waking up to."

Mr Boyd added: "So if Scotland does go into a 'Whaur's yer Willie Shakespeare noo?' phase, I don't think it will last forever.

"Shakespeare is studied by 50% of the world's kids, and he is one of the most important cultural lingua franca that the world has and for either Ireland or for Scotland to chop off their nose to spite their Anglo-dominated face, is self-defeating and it won't last long."

Mr Boyd said Shakespeare failed when it came to analysing the different nations of Britain.

"Ireland was a massive [topic], and Scotland was massive, of course, with [Shakespeare's] last great patron, King James [VI and I]," he said. "As King James' favoured theatre company, it was their job to make sense of this new three-pillared empire that 'Augustus' James was building called Britain, and I think Shakespeare's attempts to analyse that are pretty feeble.

"He was most interesting if you look at Antony and Cleopatra. There's a sense of Octavius Caesar as a kind of King James, using language about the Roman Empire that James liked to use ... an Augustan view of the world, a new Silver Age of peace.

"So it was very important for Shakespeare, it just wasn't his strong point."

Professor Tom Devine, Scotland's leading historian, was unconvinced by Mr Boyd's comments.

He said: "He does not seem to be aware either of the difference between Irish and Scottish history or of the dramatically contrasting connection each country has had with England over the centuries.

"Ireland was a colonised country, conquered by England, with freedom in part achieved by violence or the threat of it. The Anglo-Scottish relationship bears no relation to that; indeed, the current Scottish Government argues that independence would actually improve relations with our southern neighbour."

He added: "Shakespeare and other major English authors are vital parts of the literary canon, firmly embedded in Scottish school and university curricula and in our national culture.

"It would be gross philistinism and the worst form of introspective, petty nationalism to even talk of abandoning them."

Professor Maley, of the School of Critical Studies at Glasgow University, who is co-editor of Shakespeare and Scotland, said the Bard's relationship with Scotland "is a good topic", but that "he's Oor Wullie too."

He said: "Shakespeare will benefit from an independent Scotland, as his works will be seen less as the shallow celebrations of Englishness and royalty that conservative critics have ideologically imagined them to be, and more as complex and deeply relevant meditations on national and regional conflicts and identities.

"Shakespeare produced his greatest work under a Scottish patron, James VI and I. He owes a lot to Scotland."

l Michael Boyd will speak as part of The Glasgow Lectures on Culture at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Thursday at 6pm.