On Monday 6 June, the ESU hosted the Shakespeare Authorship Debate, with director Roland Emmerich.

The debate also featured Professor Stanley Wells CBE, Professor Michael Dobson, Rev Dr Paul Edmondson, Charles Beauclerk, and Doctor William Leahy. The chairman for the evening was James Probert.

The ESU hosted the event in conjunction with Sony Pictures, the ESU and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to coincide with the release of multi-award-winning director Emmerich's latest film, Anonymous.

Inspired by the upcoming release of Emmerich’s new film Anonymous, starring Derek Jacobi, Vanessa Redgrave and Rhys Ifans, the two panels debated whether Shakespeare really was the author that most people believe him to have been.

To a packed room, the eminent panelists argued under the motion "This House Believes that William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon wrote the plays and poems attributed to him."