Roger Harcourt, who has died aged 85, was a highly unusual headteacher. His 30-year tenure at a struggling Hertfordshire comprehensive transformed it into a thriving school renowned for its Shakespeare productions.
Starting in the 1970s, and continuing for 20 years after his retirement in 2004, Roger led an extraordinary Shakespeare camp that brought hundreds of current and former students, of whom I was one, to a field outside Stratford-upon-Avon. There we watched every production of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s summer season, delivered seminars on the plays and staged street theatre productions.
