Bloody silly idea ....soon there would be as few people listening to Shakespeare as listen to English folksongs. How many people must have turned up to an English folk club and thought, I'm buggered if I'm going to listen to anybody sounding like that.

Compare and contrast the state of English folk music to English theatre.

Shakespeare pulls an audience for an entire week everywhere, whoever is playing it. There are about four folk artists who could fill a decent sized theatre once every six months. And one of those(McTell) doesn't sing in the regulation Water Gabriel/Robert Newton's Long John Siver accent.