The most perfect experience of Theatre (Shakespeare' s Globe Theatre in general)

Member Name: DancingCopper

Product:	Shakespeare' s Globe Theatre in general
Date:	15/10/08 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: There is nothing else like it

Disadvantages: If you watch a show you don't like, it might cloud your whole judgement

Here's what you have to do:

Get yourself onto the London Underground network and take the Central Line to St Paul's. When you arrive there are signposts to direct you down to the Thames and across to the Globe Theatre. When you get to the river, just stop for a moment by the Millenium Footbridge and enjoy the view. Straight ahead of you is the towering phoenix of Tate Modern. If you've got a couple of hours to kill before your play starts, go in - it's free. Doesn't matter if you like or dislike modern art, the place is awesome, and there's a great cafe at the top where you can look out over the cityscape.

To the left of the Tate is The Globe. If you can't quite make it out, look for the ice cream van out front - it's always there. Make your way across the Millennium Bridge and try counting the number of shocks you get from touching the handrail. Once you reach the south bank, don't get straight off. Turn round and look back at the City (not the city), spend a couple of minutes letting the crowd hustle past you while you soak in the magnificence of Christopher Wren's cathedral.

The reason I'm giving you this is because going to the Globe is about so much more than a trip to see a play you may not understand, on your feet for three hours come scorching sun or biting rain. It is a London that embraces its past, present and future, harmoniously and energetically. I am totally in love with this little piece of Bankside, as some who have looked up at the Taj Mahal or floated through Venice must feel.

Don't just come here to see a play, as some kind of tourist list-ticking exercise. Give yourself the day, and spend half of it letting the Globe experience gently guide you through the changing face of this place. Remember, the dream of the Globe has been in existence far longer than the reality.

Having crossed the Millennium Footbridge to the south bank and turned left, a couple of minutes walking will bring you to the Globe visitor centre. Buy your tickets and (I can't stress this enough) get yourself booked on one of the tours. I have been on two of these now, both very different. The wealth of knowledge and skill of delivery the tour guides had made the hour fly by. We were never more than a couple of hundred metres from the theatre but there was so much, anonymously blending in with the landscape. For instance, we saw the area where the bear fights took place, and an odd petrusion from the wall of a building turned out to be a ferryman's seat, in the days when there was only one bridge across the Thames.

The visitor centre itself is spacious, and rarely has many people inside it. There is an excellent collection of stage props and reconstructed workshop. There is also the opportunity for you to recite and record lines from Shakespeare's plays. Make sure you are in the right place when they run the presentations - I spent 15 minutes watching someone kitted up in the garmants that would have been worn by an actor in performance.

You'll be done here in about an hour, so exit the visitor centre, turn right and follow the wall around until you get to the main entrance of the theatre itself. Before you get there, you'll walk past an iron gate and, if the doors are open, catch your first glimpse of the Globe's stage.

The foyer of the theatre is modern and there is a box office, cafe and giftshop. There are lots of doors the public can't go through, and I like the fact that the theatrical performance is merely the tip of the iceberg - the Globe is a continuous hive of activity, research and theatrical experimentation. I took students there once and had an hour's workshop on a play with one of the Globe actors - any teachers, I recommend this!

It does get very busy here prior to a show, so I suggest you get there a little early if you want to have a table for your coffee cup. While I'm finding fault, I'll give you my other gripe - there aren't enough toilets at the Globe. Be prepared, when the interval comes, to move very quickly or wait for a long time!

There, moan over. Now, having had a little look in the visitors' shop, head outside and wait to get into the theatre. While you wait, look at the names on the paving slabs under your feet. Every name paid a donation to the theatre and it was these donations that helped Sam Wanamaker reconstruct the Globe, his life's ambition. Sadly, he never saw it completed, but even today the Globe remains self-supporting, and there aren't many nationally significant artistic institutions that can say that.

Now, my friend, you get to walk into 'the wooden O'. The first thing you'll probably notice is the buzz from the crowd. The stage thrusts out into the audience, and three hundred people will be stood around it. This is the way I have always seen shows there, maybe because it feels like the authentic way to watch, maybe because I'm still too tight to pay more than the five pounds it costs (compare that to forty pounds for an average seat in a West End musical). There is an energy and enthusiasm...for Shakespeare?

The theatre itself is stunning, recreated as accurately as possible. Health and safety mean there are extinguishers and emergency lighting, but we don't want the place to burn down again, so that's a good thing. The ground is also no longer covered with straw and theatre-goers (luckily) can't pee on it. But do nothing other than look around the theatre, the three-tier auditorium and the stage, with it's paintings, pillars and balcony.

In my opinion, the plays have got better and better here. I saw a lacklustre Romeo and Juliet a couple of years ago and last year saw a fantastically dark Titus Andronicus. The space has limitations, but it seems designers and directors are embracing this and creating more and more imaginative productions.

Finally, sit back (or stand) and watch your play. There is nowhere else in the world where that language combines with its setting and audience so perfectly. If visiting the Globe is my love-affair, watching a play there is the kiss, and I will keep coming back. Maybe, if you give it the chance to work its magic, your heart will beat a little faster as well.

Summary: We are such stuff as dreams are made on...