Shakespeare's Globe

Lonely Planet review

Shakespeare's Globe consists of the reconstructed Globe Theatre and, beneath it, an exhibition hall, entry to which includes a tour of the Globe Theatre except when matinees are being staged. Then the tour shifts to the nearby Rose Theatre. The exhibition focuses on Elizabethan London and stagecraft and the struggle to get the theatre rebuilt in the 20th century.

The original Globe - known as the 'Wooden O' after its circular shape and roofless centre - was erected in 1599 with timber taken from the demolished Theatre (1576) on Curtain Rd in Shoreditch. The Globe was closed in 1642 after the English Civil War was won by the Puritans, who regarded the theatre as the devil's workshop, and it was dismantled two years later. Despite the worldwide popularity of Shakespeare over the centuries, the Globe was a barely distant memory when American actor (and later film director) Sam Wanamaker came searching for it in 1949. Undeterred by the fact that the foundations of the theatre had vanished beneath a row of listed Georgian houses, Wanamaker set up the Globe Playhouse Trust in 1970 and began fundraising for a memorial theatre. Work started only 200m from the original Globe site in 1987, but Wanamaker died four years before it opened in 1997.

The new Globe was painstakingly constructed with 600 oak pegs (there's not a nail or a screw in the house), specially fired Tudor bricks and thatching reeds from Norfolk that - for some odd reason - pigeons don't like; even the plaster contains goat hair, lime and sand as it did in Shakespeare's time. Unlike other venues for Shakespearean plays, this theatre has been designed to resemble the original as closely as possible - even if that means leaving the arena open to the skies and roar of passing aircraft, expecting the 500 'groundlings' to stand even in the rain, and obstructing much of the view from the seats closest to the stage with two enormous 'original' Corinthian pillars. The Globe Café on the Piazza level and the Globe Restaurant on the 1st floor are open for lunch and dinner till 22:00 or 23:00 .

The season runs from May to early October. Attempts to raise funds to complete the indoor Inigo Jones Theatre, a replica of a Jacobean playhouse connected to the Globe for winter performances, have not been successful.