Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Shakespeare's Globe

Hello my trusted readers... Silence no longer :-)

April 2010 I was in London. A lot of things happened that April. Many of you might remember a certain volcano on Iceland grounding all aviation across the continent... Yeah, I was in London at the time...
I actually didn't mind being stuck in London, as it is the city where my pleasures live. But my traveling companion dragged me away from my special place and back home. A trip that would usually take one hour with plane now took days. It took us three days with boat, bus, train, boat and then train... Had it been up to me I would have waited that week for the planes... but there you go! This entry is not about me rushing across the continent in what can only be described as a creative manner, this entry is about one of the sights I visited when I was in London.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

I have referred to this theatre in earlier entires, but I felt I needed to tell you about this wonderful, magical and brilliant place.
Located next to Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern and The Thames it's hard to miss... And why would you?

History:
It was originally built in 1599 by Shakespeare's Playing Company, The Lord Chamberlain's Men. But it suffered the rather dramatic results from powerful pyrotechnics, and burned to the ground 29 June 1613.It was rebuilt a year later, and then in the end demolished in 1644.

Then, enter the Americans... American actor and director Sam Wanamaker founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust in 1970, and in 1997 it stood finished and beautiful, and had its opening night with a staging of Henry V.
Shakespeare's Globe is located approximately 750 feet from its original location...because where it was located back in the day we now find a bridge.
The reconstruction is "an academic best guess, based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings (Wikipedia)."
Now it stages plays every summer, and is a busy tourist goal.
Yes, that is the sky...

So, I obviously wanted to visit this place when I went to London.
I'm so in love with the plays and texts of Shakespeare, that going to London and not visiting his Globe would be like going to Cairo and not see the Pyramids (by the way something that can't be done, because almost wherever you are in Cairo you see the Pyramids).
I practically had to drag my friend with me... I hope she enjoyed it, because it meant the world to me, and we did go the Tate Modern afterwards (located just next to Shakespeare's Globe), so you give, you take...I remember being at Tate Modern, but I was walking in a haze...
I had just been to Shakespeare's Globe.

We were there, bought tickets for a guided tour, and our guide...
My word.
He is the lead in two of my novels, and I only met him that one time.
Picture this: A guy dressed in black leather pants, black leather boots, a black leather coat, and underneath a T-shirt with the words "Wicked" (wicked as in "By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes") on it. His hair was black and curly, and long, and he had a distinct Welsh dialect. But what made him perfect was his limp.
He was brilliant, and all the things he knew...I mean, wow.
So when this man lead us into the centre of magic I felt everybody else disappeared but him and me. And he was talking to me, and me alone, about the fire, about where the Queen used to sit, about "heaven" and "hell", about how patron John Cleese had them spell patron Michael Palin's name incorrectly, about how it took an American daring to think big to build it, and Shakespeare's Globe will never leave my heart.
Are you ever in London, don't miss it.

No comments:

Post a Comment