Super sleuth cracks Shakespeare code

A sleuthing psychotherapist will reveal the true identity of Britain’s greatest playwright at a talk in Uppermill next month.

Dr John Casson says his research shows that Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by Elizabethan aristocrat and diplomat Henry Neville.

And he will show how the information was decoded from the 1609 dedication to Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Dr Casson, a drama therapist and psychotherapy trainer based in Uppermill, works with author Brenda James who first claimed she had broken the code and discovered who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

She has published two books, “The Truth Will Out” and “Henry Neville and the Shakespeare Code”, and claims that her research from 2001 to 2005 proves that Neville’s background, education, knowledge and experience match incidents and language in the plays.

Neville was born and died on virtually identical dates to Shakespeare, who was his frontman.

Dr Casson says the claim that Neville is really the author of Shakespeare’s works may seem bizarre.

But he added: “This is a genuine, well-researched discovery involving an amazing decoding of the 1609 dedication to Shakespeare’s sonnets which I will demonstrate during the talk.

“This first talk will be followed by another when my own book, detailing further new discoveries, is published.”

Dr Casson said he has always been interested in the subject, but it was only when he read Brenda James’s studies that he made contact with her and began his own studies.

He said: “I am now her principal co-researcher. If we were wrong it would be bizarre.

“Shakespeare left not a single letter at the time when that was the way people communicated, and Henry Neville left hundreds of letters.

“I started looking at vocabulary and studying at the John Rylands Library and the library at Chetham’s School.”

Important clues, he says, are names like Count Orsino in “Twelfth Night” — the real count did visit Britain at Christmas, 1600, but no-one knew he was coming until November when Neville’s secretary wrote to him, giving Neville time to add his name to the play to honour him, says Dr Casson.

His own book on his independent discoveries comes out in March, but the title is still under wraps, he said.

He added: “Brenda has published two books and two online journals, and is working on another book.

“I can completely understand people thinking I am mad to believe this but we are interested in the truth and not interested in making things up.

“The most outstanding piece of evidence is how Brenda James made this discovery.”

The secret of the code, and much more about Henry Neville and how he could be the playwright we know as Shakespeare, will be revealed by Dr Casson at his free talk at Uppermill Library on March 25 at 6pm.