To celebrate that, we are presenting four of Shakespeare’s plays about the exuberance and the exhilaration of young hearts bursting out of themselves. Romeo & Juliet stands alone as the greatest play about the purity of young love running tragically into a comic world of adult confusion. Troilus & Cressida pits the passion of its young heroes against the backdrop of a vicious and hilarious satire on warmongering. As You Like It and Love’s Labour’s Lost are both joyous celebrations of the inability of the young to control all of the wild energy which love releases.

As European capital of culture, it attracted 15 million tourists, an estimated ?800m boost to the local economy and plaudits from Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, who proclaimed it had forged a "renewed sense of pride and confidence".

But Liverpool is due to come down to earth with a bump this year after a thinktank warned that it is among the three British cities that are most vulnerable to the recession.

The Centre for Cities has placed Liverpool, Belfast and Hull on "red alert" status in a review of the social, economic and environmental strengths and weaknesses of 64 cities in the UK.

"The capital of culture and the associated investment did provide a boost to Liverpool and the ?1bn investment in retail means Liverpool is now the fifth busiest shopping destination in the country," said Dermot Finch, director of the Centre for Cities.

"What is more, its secondary schools are now producing GCSE results which are just above the national average. But none of that can insulate Liverpool from the effects of the recession in the next couple of years. It has the lowest rate of employment in the whole country and the highest number of benefit claimants. It is in for a harder ride than it might think."

Last week, I wrote about the difficulties theatre faces in responding to the situation in Gaza. Because of the sheer amount of time it takes to write and produce work, it appeared near impossible.

Now comes the news that Caryl Churchill was so impassioned about what has been happening that she has written a play about it. Seven Jewish Children—a Play for Gaza will be performed at the Royal Court from 6 February. Tickets are free and there will be a collection for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. So, where there's a will, there is a way. Churchill's piece is just 10 minutes long, but as Beckett's Breath and Pinter's Mountain Language proved, the length of a play is no guide to its power and impact.

Romeo and Juliet must be the most read, staged, studied, adapted or translated of all Shakespeare’s plays.

Indeed, two productions of the play will be staged at the Globe in the Spring. The first will play to over 10,000 school students in March as part of Globe Education’s Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank project. Tickets for one of the performances will be free for the general public. The second production will open the 2009 Globe Theatre Season on 23 April.

The spring season of talks and lectures is inspired by the play. I am delighted that Katharine Duncan-Jones will give the 2009 Sam Wanamaker Fellowship Lecture and I look forward to exploring the 'kiss' one evening and the 'book' in 16th century England on another.

A staged reading of Marlowe’s tragic poem of two young lovers, Hero and Leander, continues our series of Read Not Dead performances with scripts and is open to all.