in Arts at in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

All year round

The long-cherished brainchild of American actor Sam Wanamaker, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is London's resplendent reconstruction of the jewel of Elizabethan Theatre. It not only offers a summer season of productions, but also the world's largest exhibition devoted to Shakespeare.

The exhibition is a panoramic visit to the world of Elizabethan theatre, presented in a moodily lit, atmospheric and capacious space on two levels of the "Underglobe". It incorporates artefacts, interactive computer exhibits, projections, music and an idea of what Bankside was like in the bard's time (a lot more lewd and rude than now). Ever-changing, with the regular addition of the theatre season's costumes, it brings an Elizabethan actor's life alive and entry includes a tour of the Globe Theatre or the nearby site of the Rose Theatre. Completed in June 1997 - 27 years after Sam Wanamaker had set up the Shakespeare Globe Trust - with traditionally built, distinctive white-painted walls between greying wooden supports, the building has rapidly become one of the capital's most popular theatres. Unfortunately Wanamaker died in 1993, when his cherished building was not-yet complete.

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