William Shakespeare 400th anniversary: Google bigs up The Bard with beautiful Doodle illustration

The world is going barmy for The Bard this weekend, with celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death.

Google has decided to pay its own tribute to Britain's favourite playwright with a Google Doodle, a drawing which is the internet's equivalent of a Hollywood star or a blue plaque.

Several tech firms are joining the party in style, with Twitter offering users the chance to use a special Bard emoji.

It will be tweeting out the complete works of Shakespeare in tiny 140 character bursts.

The British Library is joining the fun too by teaming up with Vodafone to release incredible "digital wallpaper" festooned with QR codes which allows kids to download his most famous plays.

'Ghost of William Shakespeare' spotted by stunned coffee shop customers on 400th anniversary of death

All these tributes to the Bard couldn't come at a more important time, because Vodafone research has suggested that youngsters are largely ignorant of the great man's work.

About half of all 13-17 years old don't know what a soliloquy is, with some wrongly claiming it's a "material used to make car tyres” or a “pasta dish”.

Separate research has also showed that young adults are more likely to be able to recognise Justin Bieber's lyrics than Shakespeare quotations.

And that's something to be truly Sorry about.

Friends, Romans, countrymen: let's plug our ears.