World Premiere
 
A celebration of a great English heroine, Anne Boleyn dramatises the life and legacy of Henry VIII’s notorious second wife. Anne Boleyn is traditionally seen either as a pawn manipulated by an ambitious father and his friends into the King’s bed, or as a sexually licentious predator, even a witch.
 
But Brenton puts a very different Anne – and her ghost – on the Globe stage. Witty and confident in her sexuality, she takes on the vicious world of Tudor Court politics. She is in love with Henry but also in love with the most dangerous ideas of her day. Conspiring with the exiled William Tyndale, the great translator of the Bible who was to be burnt as a heretic, Anne plots to make England Protestant, forever.
 
Award-winning playwright Howard Brenton’s previous work includes In Extremis at Shakespeare's Globe (2006 and 2007).

World Premiere
 
What is madness? What is sanity? It is 18th-century London, noisy and chaotic. The city’s ancient hospital for the insane is under the supervision of the prejudiced Dr Sidney Carew and his imbecile son, whose interests lie in containing rather than curing their patients. But with the arrival of the lovely country girl, May, and the appointment of a more enlightened and sympathetic governor, this inhuman regime starts to crumble, along with the sanity of the asylum keepers themselves.
 
Employing a cast that includes doctors (some mad), patients (some sane), a homicidal painter and a hypochondriac poet, and set against an anarchic backdrop of binge drinkers, gin sellers and ballad singers, Bedlam combines dance and song with scenes of lust, violence, absurd comedy and unexpected romance.

A revival of the 2008 hit
 
’Christopher Luscombe’s production brims with humanity, ingenuity and irresistible charm… not just theatre but the capital at its very best.’ Sunday Telegraph
 
‘A wonderfully warming comedy, stuffed to bursting with belly laughs.’ The Times
 
’The feel-good hit of the summer.’ Daily Telegraph
 
Imagining that Mistress Ford and Mistress Page have each fallen for him, the fat knight Sir John Falstaff decides to seduce them both, as much for their husbands’ money as for their personal charms. Wise to the old rogue’s tricks, the women turn the tables on him with a series of humiliating assignations and a very damp, extremely smelly laundry basket.
 
Featuring many characters from Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Shakespeare’s brilliantly constructed farce, which gave birth to a tradition that reaches down to the modern TV sitcom, returns to the Globe after delighting audiences in 2008.
 

Hotspur is dead and Prince Hal has proved his mettle on the battlefield, but Henry IV lies dying and the rebels, though scattered, show no sign of declaring their allegiance to the Crown. Even Falstaff is forced out of the taverns to raise a scratch militia in the country. But will his attachment to the rising Hal be rewarded with promotion and the life of ease he feels sure he deserves?
 
At least the equal of Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 includes some of the greatest moments in Shakespeare: the deathbed scene of the old King, when Hal contemplates the crown; the reunion of Falstaff with his old boon companion, Justice Shallow; and Hal's devastating rejection of Falstaff himself.
 
This production will employ Renaissance staging and costume.

Prince Hal, son of Henry IV, seems to be squandering his life among the whores, boozers and petty rogues of Eastcheap. And the greatest of these rogues is the fat knight, Sir John Falstaff, a liar, glutton, lecher, cheat, braggart, fool and sponger who also possesses wit, warmth, intelligence and a gigantic sense of fun. But beside these scenes of glorious misrule gathers a nationwide rebellion led by the Duke of Northumberland and his charismatic son, Hotspur.
The first instalment of Shakespeare's gripping account of the rise of Hal from idle barfly to monarch-in-waiting combines compelling power politics with the hilarious antics of Falstaff, Shakespeare's greatest comic creation.
This production will employ Renaissance staging and costume.

The Tudor Court is locked in a power struggle between its nobles and the Machiavellian Cardinal Wolsey, the King's first minister and the most conspicuous symbol of Catholic power in the land. Wolsey's ambition knows no bounds and when his chief ally, Queen Katherine, interferes in the King's romance with Ann Bullen, he brings gigantic ruin upon himself, the Queen and centuries of English obedience to Rome.
 
Famous in its own day as Shakespeare's most sumptuous and spectacular play, Henry VIII is a gorgeous pageant of masques and royal ceremony; a blaze of fireworks, cannonfire, red satin and cloth-of-gold. But within the passages of grandeur works the mind of the mature Shakespeare: psychological and political insight, language of great depth and power and, in the figures of Wolsey and Katherine, two of his most vivid and memorable characters.
 

When three witches tell the general Macbeth that he is destined to occupy the throne of Scotland, he and his wife choose to become the instruments of their fate and to kill the first man to stand in their path, the virtuous King Duncan. But to maintain his position, Macbeth must keep on killing - at first Banquo, his old comrade-in-arms; and later, as the atmosphere of guilt and paranoia thickens, anyone who seems a threat to the tyrant and his fear.
 
From its first moments to the last fulfilment of the witches' prophecy, Shakespeare's gripping account of the psychological experience of murder enthralls the imagination. In scenes of nightmarish vividness and language of haunting power, Macbeth represents the profoundest engagement with the forces of evil in all drama.

Shakespeare's Globe Exhibition is the world's largest exhibition devoted to Shakespeare and the London in which he lived and worked. Housed beneath the reconstructed Globe Theatre on London's Bankside, the exhibition explores the remarkable story of the Globe, and brings Shakespeare's world to life using a range of interactive displays and live demonstrations.

Visit the exciting and often dangerous world of Elizabethan London where in 1599, Bankside was the entertainment center of the capital packed with gambling dens, brothels, bear-baiting pits and theaters. Ordinary people flocked to see Shakespeare's plays and they laughed, cried, shouted abuse at the actors, ate and drank during the performances.

As a visitor to the Exhibition you'll discover how shows were produced in the theaters of Shakespeare's time, from writing and rehearsals to music, dance and performance. Learn about the traditional crafts and techniques used during the process of rebuilding the Globe and find out how special effects were produced in Shakespeare's time - from thunder and lightning to flying on stage and realistic blood and gore. Listen to recordings from some of the most Shakespearean performances ever or join the cast and add your own voice to a scene recorded by Globe actors. Create your own Shakespearean phrases in the word jungle, watch a sword-fighting display and browse the costume collection, where you can find out about the extraordinary methods used in creating clothes 400 years ago.

A visit to the Exhibition includes a guided tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre where storytellers take you on a fascinating half-hour tour of the auditorium. Journey through time to Elizabethan London with their colourful tales of the 1599 theater experience as well as the reconstruction process of the 1990's and how the wooden 'o' works today as an imaginative and experimental theatrical space.

Tour Info

From 23rd April until 10th October 2009

Exhibition

Open 9am 6pm

Globe Theatre Tours

Monday all day from 9am 5pm

Tuesday to Saturday 9am 12.30pm

Sunday 9am 11.30pm

Out of Theatre Season, from 11th October 2009

Exhibition

Open 10am - 6pm

Globe Theatre Tours

Every day, all day from 9am - 5pm

2009-2010 Schedule

Oct 09 - March 2010* - 10.00-17.00 - Globe tours run all day

* According to the 2010 Theatre Season dates. To be announced in November 2009

April 10-Sept 10*: 09.00 -17.00 - Mon-Tours run all day - Tues-Sat: Last tour at 12.30pm - Sunday: Last tour at 11.30am.

During our Theatre Season, Tours to the Globe Theatre will be restricted to the above schedule as matinees and evening performances take place inside the auditorium.

Visitors coming outside of these hours will be offered an alternative tour to the archaeological site of the Rose Theatre, built in 1587 on Bankside. It is the only Elizabethan Theatre that has been excavated on a large scale in 1989.

Important note: rehearsals will also take place throughout the year. Please note that access to the Globe Theatre may be restricted. Times and availability of the exhibition is occasionally subject to change without prior notice.Please contact us for the latest updates on +44 (0)20 7902 1500.

The Globe Theatre is a faithful reconstruction of the Elizabethan playhouse. Experience today's working theatre and visit the world of Bankside, the Soho of Elizabethan London.

Groups of 15+ must be pre-booked & receive 1 free ticket in every 16.

Adult: 18+

Child: 5 - 15

Concession: Senior 60+, Student: 16+ with valid ID

Shakespeares Globe 2009 Theatre Season Young Hearts includes Shakespeares Romeo & Juliet, As You Like It, Troilus & Cressida and Loves Labours Lost as well as three new plays The Frontline, Helen and A New World. The Season also includes two UK tours of The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Nights Dream.