mon 09/06/2025

Globe

The Globe Mysteries at Shakespeare’s Globe

{rtmp width="510" height="310" img="http://www.theartsdesk.com/media/k2/items/cache/dc0900c4858a2f0dce82ed38..."}Mysteries{/rtmp} If you thought Bible stories were just for Sunday school, think again. Shakespeare’s Globe - the open-air reproduction...

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theartsdesk MOT: Anne Boleyn, Globe Theatre

In the spirit in which these reviews are intended, I can report that all the bits of Anne Boleyn are working. The chrome is gleaming; all cylinders are firing. It’ll be good – roadworthy, Globe-worthy – for another year at least. Tudormania, as...

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Doctor Faustus, Globe Theatre

Faustus (Paul Hilton) gets to grips with some of Mephistopheles's fleshier spirits

There be dragons aplenty, angels, demons and ghastly creatures both fleshy and feathered in the Globe Theatre’s inaugural production of Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe’s take on the familiar Faust legend, bold in its religious content, was a...

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Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare's Globe

Everybody’s talking about Much Ado About Nothing. At dinner tables, the pub and on the Bakerloo Line the only cultural conversation to be overheard having is whether David Tennant and Catherine Tate will be as wonderful as we all want them to be as...

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All's Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare's Globe

James Garnon's comic sidekick Parolles (right) steals the show from juve lead Sam Crane (centre) and Michael Bertenshaw's apoplectic Lafeu (left)

Trust the "wooden O" to set the Shakespearean record straighter than usual. In John Dove's production, this is no problem play but a bright comedy where the immaculate plotting proves more admirable than its questionable characters. Its low...

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In the Beginning Was the Word: The King James Bible 400th

The King James Bible, that great monument in the biography of the English language, is 400 years old this year. To use its own wording, it is as old as the hills, as old as Methuselah. Contemporaneous with Shakespeare, it has given us as many of the...

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Richard Thompson, Philip Pickett, Musicians of the Globe, Cadogan Hall

I defy anyone not to be excited at the prospect of a concert featuring such numbers as “Cuckolds All Awry”, “The Queen’s Dumpe”, “The Wooing of the Baker’s Daughter” and “Tickle My Toe”. Add to these tantalising scenarios early music’s favourite...

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Bedlam, Shakespeare's Globe

Country girl May (Rose Leslie) is feasted upon by blood-sucking leeches in 18th-century Bedlam

Nell Leyshon’s new play takes place in a mental asylum closely based on London’s notorious Bethlem Hospital. Set in the 18th century, it is a bizarre fusion of farce, drama and drinking songs. Bethlem, of course, gave its name to the term “bedlam”,...

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The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe

A genuine, if unanticipated, phenomenon has emerged over time at Shakespeare's Globe, the Bardic-themed playhouse that these days is full more often than not and with good reason, too. Time was when the canon's lesser-known offerings could be...

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Shakespeare's Sitcom: Merry Wives Return to The Globe

“It isn’t a surprise to me, but it is a surprise to him that it isn’t a surprise to me.” On a Monday morning in the rehearsal room at Shakespeare’s Globe, actors and actresses are getting into character. “You’re acting panic,” clarifies the director...

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Anne Boleyn, Shakespeare's Globe

Never have the Tudors seemed so real. After decades of TV and film characters keeping us at a teasing, ermined distance, Hilary Mantel's dazzling novel Wolf Hall brings it all to life as never before, and the Globe's still-running Henry VIII has...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Playwright Howard Brenton

Political playwright Howard Brenton (b. 1942) is always in the process of being "rediscovered". Yet at the same time he has been at the heart of British theatrical life for the past 40 years, since his debut in 1969 with Christie in Love. True, he...

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