RSC to put on work by poet who wrote Stratford theatre’s first words

John Masefield was poet laureate from 1930 but his work has largely ‘sunk without trace’, an expert says. Photograph: John Pratt/Getty Images

Many people might assume that the first words spoken on the stage of the new Shakespeare playhouse in Stratford-upon-Avon when it opened in 1932 were written by Shakespeare, but in fact they were by John Masefield.

Now, 56 years after the poet laureate’s death, Masefield’s words will be heard there again in an adaptation by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) of his 1935 children’s adventure novel, The Box of Delights.