Perhaps most fun is the FESTE Shakespeare Database Search, which allows you to enter any artist and reveals his or her every RSC association. For instance, entering Ian McKellen reminds you of his performances since playing Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus from August 13, 1974, to his Iago which opened at Stratford’s The Other Place on August 24, 1989. Enter the title Peter Pan, and you’ll find that Joss Ackland played Captain Hook in 1982, with Sheila Hancock as Mrs. Darling. A year later, Mark Rylance played Peter, with Edward Petherbridge as the Storyteller and Andrew Jarvis as the Crocodile. The archive can be found through the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust website at www.shakespeare.org.uk. The RSC says that by August, a link should be provided to the Shakespeare Centre Library, which will allow access to videos and books.

There are other, more general features about the Bard too. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Records Office link, for instance, allows searches among the Office’s catalogue.