Sooner or later each of us is going to have an encounter with William Shakespeare.

The trick to getting people to love the plays is to make their first encounter a good one.

One man doing his best to make children's first encounter with the Bard a meaningful and fun one is panto dame extraordinaire Chris Harris.

Chris has just finished another hugely successful panto season at the Theatre Royal Bath and has scarcely had time to draw breath before embarking on another year of his Shakespearean performances.

For getting on for four decades Chris has been performing his play Kemp's Jig his own take on Will Kemp – who apparently hated Shakespeare – but was nevertheless a shareholder with the great man in the company of the Lord Chamberlain's Men.

One of Chris's other Shakespearean success is his Shakes-Kids which is an introduction to Shakespeare as seen through the eyes of Shakespeare's clown Will Kemp. Chris is doing both shows at this years hugely expanded Shakespeare Unplugged Festival based at the Theatre Royal, Ustinov and egg theatre in Bath which opens this weekend. Says Chris: "At some point in your life you are going to meet Shakespeare.

"It is a good idea if your first introduction is fun. The play takes the children on a journey so that when they meet the man later on in their lives they remember him in a good way. My English teacher John Wilkins, who was the inspiration behind the building on Taunton's Brewhouse Theatre, was a great enthusiast who spent more than hour on the instruction 'exit pursued by bear'. I enjoyed reading out loud and he must have spotted something. Anyway that was my own introduction to Shakespeare."