Tag Archives: Shakespeare’s Globe

So how should Shakespeare really sound?

The biggest perceived challenge to anyone getting to grips with Shakespeare for the first time is probably making sense of the language. All the old-fashioned words, the use of “thee” and “thou”, the poetic constructions, the grammar itself. Yet reading … Continue reading

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Thomas Platter’s visit to Shakespeare’s theatre

On 21 September 1599 a Swiss tourist, Thomas Platter, visiting London, went to the newly-opened Globe Theatre to see a play. As it happened, he saw Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The occasion made quite an impression on him, so much so … Continue reading

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John Lyly’s Galatea by Edward’s Boys

Galatea is the first full play by Lyly that Edward’s Boys, the schoolboy troupe from King Edward VI School in Stratford, have performed, and I’d guess that it won’t be the last. Nowadays Lyly is largely remembered as one of … Continue reading

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Taking Hamlet around the Globe

Touring has been an essential part of acting life for centuries: Shakespeare is thought to have seen his first plays as a child when a professional touring group came to Stratford-upon-Avon, and we assume he was one of the actors … Continue reading

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John Lyly onstage with Edward’s Boys

A new production of John Lyly’s play Galatea has just been announced. Performances of his plays are now a real rarity, but at his peak, in the 1580s, Lyly was the most fashionable dramatist in England. His plays were not aimed … Continue reading

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In with the new: welcoming the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

On 9 January 2014 the great Jacobean tragedy The Duchess of Malfi will be the first play to be performed at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the second performance space in the Shakespeare’s Globe complex on the south bank of the … Continue reading

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Dido, Queen of Carthage: Marlowe and Shakespeare’s visions of Troy

Dido, Queen of Carthage is one of Christopher Marlowe’s least-performed and least-read plays. It’s sometimes been suggested that this unpopularity has been caused by it being an early, perhaps undergraduate effort. Recently there has been a revival of interest in … Continue reading

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Devine and Wanamaker: two giants of the theatre

Last Tuesday I heard the stories of two men who each played crucial roles in the twentieth-century theatre, born within a few years of each other, but while one is a household name, the other is often overlooked. These men … Continue reading

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Taking Hamlet to the world: Dominic Dromgoole’s “lunatic idea”

You have to hand it to Dominic Dromgoole, the Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe: he’s not afraid of a challenge. Looking to beat the 2012 Globe to Globe Festival project, his latest scheme is to take Hamlet on World Tour, … Continue reading

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Shakespeare, Live from Stratford-upon-Avon

At last, at last, the Royal Shakespeare Company are launching “Live from Stratford-upon-Avon”, in which the sellout production of Richard II starring David Tennant is  to be screened live in cinemas around the world. The RSC have been slow getting … Continue reading

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