A trip to heaven and hell - behind the scenes at the Globe

Heaven and Hell Tour, Shakespeare's Globe, London. January 2017.

As regular readers of this blog know the Globe and Sam Wanamaker Theatre are places that I like and willingly spend my time (apologies for the appropriation of Shakespeare for that line!). Before I'd even seen a show here, way back in 2010, I took the general tour and fell in love with the space.

When the extra special tour for Friends of the Globe coincided with a night Rebecca and I would be in London it seemed like fate and we were at the Globe before 10am on a Sunday morning for our tour of the theatre from top to bottom.

We were encouraged to take photos as we were taken right up to the very top of the theatre, in to the heavens, and then even under the stage to peer up through the trap door.  We even got taken down below this level to the room where (some) of the costumes and props are stored.
Our guide was wonderful and gave us a talk that included how the building was built, how the shows are staged, how the effects work, anecdotes from past productions and tidbits of information about plans for the theatre,  He was also wonderfully balanced and talked about things that had gone wrong and also what was incorrect about the building as has been discovered through research in the past 20 years - not least that the stage is built from the wrong wood!

I can't begin to replicate the tales so I am just going to fill this post with pictures from the tour!

We started on the stage in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

We then went, via the "dressing room" to the very top of the building, to the heavens.

The trap that lets people fly from down from heaven was then opened for us

We then went down to the musician gallery level

And then we got to go on the stage - the audience are *very* close!

The we went under the stage, right down to hell - it was surprisingly chilly!

Then we got taken to one of the costume and prop store, we were allowed to touch the costumes and wield a sword

Theatre 2017 - Review One: All the Angels

All the Angels, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London. January 2017.

Wow - what a way to start theatre trips in 2017! This play had appealed to me from the instant I saw it in the Globe's brochure a while back, and I was sad that I couldn't get to those first performances. When it was announced that it was coming back for the winter 2016/17 season I knew I had to go.  I'm not sure Rebecca knew what she was agreeing to but she gamely took on board my enthusiasm and we booked seats.

How to explain this...it is the story of Handel writing and staging the first performances of the Messiah but it isn't a performance of the oratorio, nor is it a straight play about the writing process.  It travels from Chester to Dublin and is about redemption and the power of music. It is also a masterclass in singing and composing.  It was also utterly spellbinding and overwhelmingly powerful.

I've loved (the famous bits of) the Messiah for a long time and the power of the music was made clear to me when we heard excerpts performed at the Royal Albert Hall as part of their candlelit Christmas festival a few years ago.  Hearing the evolution of the music in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker was magical. The voices filled the space wonderfully and being both an intimate but still quite large space it was wonderful to feel the music filling the space.

The two subplots, one imagined and one real, did bind the music together and being interested in Shakespeare and performance history I really enjoyed Susannah Cibber's story while the Crow's provided a valve from the heightened emotion of the Messiah.

The use of the singers as almost actors was inspired too - they personified the power of music in a very clever way whilst being consummate professionals. Kudos to them all as they had to perform singing badly too which must have almost been harder than Handel's original.

I think that you can tell I loved this piece of theatre,  I could quite easily have sat through it again that day despite the discomfort of the seats. If this doesn't make my top 10 plays of 2017 then this year is going to be really brilliant in terms of theatre.

Now if someone can recommend a really good recording of the Messiah for me to listen to I'd be most grateful

Theatre 2016: Review Twenty-Eight

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London. September 2016.

I'm used to walking into the candlelit Wanamaker Playhouse and being transported back to the early 1600s, thus is was a bit of a shock to walk in and find that there was 1960s pop music playing and the stage was set for an intimate music gig complete with electric lights. I confess my heart sank, after the recent reworking of Dr Faustus a 'concept' play seemed doomed to disappoint me.


From the very first moment however I was captivated. It was a very clever idea to bring an awkward play to life.  We started in repressed Verona with a young cast all in modest, drab clothes - a place that the swinging sixties certainly hadn't reached.  As they leave for Milan colour and life comes into the world and the music becomes far more upbeat. After the interval we've left Milan and are with the outlaws and now the costumes and music show this by being very 'hippy.' The music had my toes tapping throughout and this was before the audience was encouraged to join in.

The plot of Two Gents is somewhat slight. Valentine and his best friend Proteus live in Milan, Valentine leaves for Milan but Proteus stays behind with his true love Julia.  Proteus' father sends him on to Milan as well where he finds his friend has fallen in love with Sylvia.  All so simple, however Proteus falls in love with Sylvia too and goes out of his way to wreck the budding relationship - this all goes far too far as he tries to rape Sylvia before she is rescued by Valentine and Julia (disguised as a boy trying to discover what has become of her lover).

Even more uncomfortable than this is the way the 'boys' just decide the futures of the girls - fair enough that Valentine and Sylvia remain as a couple but the assumption that Julia will want Proteus again after his actions is incredible.
This production handled this nicely as after the boys have said their piece Sylvia and Julia take to the microphones and sing a lament - it is obvious that they are not accepting of the decisions made on their behalf.

The modernising of the play in setting worked for me entirely because Shakespeare's words had been kept (in fact lines from other plays had been added to one scene to huge comic effect!)and because his plots are universal I believed the story worked brilliantly with a sixties setting.

The cast of 9 were all incredibly talented actors and musicians and the comic character was reined in to maximum effect, and the staging of Crab the dog was very funny. A plot so simple could easily have been tinkered with far too much but in keeping everything as the original except the era it felt fresh and different, everything that updating of Dr Faustus failed to be!

I'm finding it hard to express my love for this show, for me it just really resonated, it started as a touring production and I really hope that tours next year so I can catch it again!

Theatre 2016: Review Fourteen

Cymbeline, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London. March 2013.

This was my final trip to this season at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre and Rebecca and I were introducing the venue to the Upstart Wren, after such a great season I was nervous that my luck couldn't hold and I hate to say I was right, but...

To be honest many of the problems I (and the others) had with this play could be put down to the script.  Although classed as a 'Late Play' it is so mad and contains so many aspects of other great plays that I wonder if it was in fact a very early play before Mr Shakespeare learned that less is more... There are girls dressed as boys, mistaken tokens, drugs that mimic death and that is before we even get to lines that are certainly recycled.
I knew it was a crazy play - let's face it, any play that needs Jupiter to descend from the ceiling to sort out the mess gets you wondering what the author was smoking - and I hoped that the Globe venue would really play on this.

Sadly what we got was a really anodyne production, it all seemed to be stuck in one gear and never took off.

The truly creepy scene was played so flat that people were laughing - and we're not talking "I feel really uncomfortable so I giggled." The scene could have been played for laughs but it wasn't here and so I found it very odd indeed.
The truly bizarre unraveling of the plot at the end was greeted by gales of laughter too - it was funny but by this time we were all looking for *any* emotional release that it got far more laughs than it deserved (and often ahead of the text).

Unlike the rest of the season the theatre also felt very close and uncomfortable - I hope that the Upstart Wren will try the venue again as this season I have seen 3 outstanding plays, and one very good one in the Playhouse and this was a disappointment.  I'm pleased that I had the chance to see this play but I wish that The Tempest  had been my final show of the Dominic Dromgoole era.

Theatre 2016: Review Thirteen

The Tempest, Sam Wanamaker Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, London. March 2016.

After seeing such a good production of this in the main Globe a couple of years ago I wasn't certain that I wanted to see this but a friend asked me to go with him and who am I to turn down a trip to the theatre?  Sadly on the day he was poorly and I persuaded Mr Norfolkbookworm to join me.

The play was brilliant, the comedic characters stole the show but at the same time were reined in so that they never overstayed their welcome. For me the highlight was Ariel, she managed to be present on stage and act her role perfectly - she was a mix of petulant, put upon, rebellious and dutiful - the cast interacting with her also deserve praise as they managed to act as if she really was invisible even when she was touching them. Her relationship with Prospero was interesting too as again you weren't sure if she loved or loathed him.

Since studying Shakespeare, and this play in particular, I've learnt so much about the 'behind-the-scenes' stories of the play. The Tempest is apparently all about colonisation and this wasn't something that I had noticed in previous productions, but here it certainly came through for me. Caliban was just a native of the island and certainly was not a monster and he was certainly a victim of a European colonisation.

This production was also interesting as Ferdinand was certainly a stronger character than usual where as Miranda was weaker than others I've seen.  She was however very much the 15/16 year old the play describes but possibly just a touch too modern.

I'm heartbroken that my friend missed this as it is the best Tempest I've seen.  Mr Norfolkbookworm enjoyed the show too but is absolutely convinced that the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is just a form of torture and however tempting the production he'll just cross his fingers that it is released on DVD!

Theatre 2016: Review Three

Pericles, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe Theatre, London. January 2016.

My new semi regular theatre companion and I made the trip to London - it was his first trip to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and my first Shakespeare in the venue.

This is a venue that has grown on me slowly, now I know which are the comfiest seats it is a place I look forward to going to but this has taken time, I was worried that my companion would find it too uncomfortable and also would struggle to hear.

I'm pleased to say that we both had a thoroughly good time at this.  It is one of the lesser know plays and deals with incest, prostitution, piracy and child murder but it came together admirably and was believable where it needed to be which is no mean feat with the story.  The play meanders around the Mediterranean as the titular Pericles is buffeted from pillar to post by fate and throughout the afternoon I didn't lose track of where we were once, impressive when you work out just how many roles some of the cast were playing!

James Garnon was playing Pericles and I've seen him a lot at the Globe in the past few years, usually he is playing a decidedly comic role and it was great to see him in a more serious lead role, at least in the first half.  In the second half both my companion and I found it played just a little too much for laughs than our own reading had allowed and 'mad' Pericles' wide eyed mania was just a little too over the top.  However the revelations at the end do pile on top of each other and the plot is ludicrous and so I can see why this directorial decision had been taken.  He wasn't alone in this interpretation as Gower, the sage/chorus figure also got broader with her interpretations of the lines and laughter at the denouement was with the cast and not in disbelief.

After two seasons it was a delight to see some Shakespeare in the venue and the way that the sea storms were portrayed and acted was incredible - a simple rope net, a sail and then body language had me as convinced as some the most expensive special effects on screen.

I am so glad that I have booked tickets for all four of the winter season's plays - it will be fascinating to see how the further storms and ludicrous plots manifest themselves in this theatre.

Theatre 2015: Review Seven

Farinelli and the King, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, London. February 2015.

Liking and admiring Mark Rylance as an actor has become hugely popular this year thanks to his role in Wolf Hall and as a result of this Rebecca and I were pleased to have booked tickets to Farinelli and the King way back last year.  We already knew he was great without waiting to see him on the small screen!

So much could have been wrong with Farinelli - it was a new piece of theatre (with music/opera), written by Rylance's wife for him and performed in a theatre that is not the most comfortable to sit in.  Luckily we found it to be a great afternoon.

It is based on a true story where the King of Spain is mad.  The play opens with the king (Rylance) lounging in bed fishing in a goldfish bowl and talking to the fish.  His state of health is ambiguous at this point as he mostly seems lucid.  His leading ministers are not happy with him and think that he should be replaced.  His situation worsens but with the help of his wife and doctor a new cure is tried - that of music and the leading castrati of the day, Farinelli, is invited to court and appears to cure the king.

There are a few nuances and added parts to the story but it remains very simple and very affecting, the king remains mostly well as long as Farinelli sings.  There is a very interesting device used for Farinelli however, and one that I didn't spot at first.

When Farinelli is singing the actor playing the role doesn't actually sing, someone else - when we saw it Iestyn Davies provided the amazing voice - appears on stage next to Farinelli and they mimic each others movements.  It sounds terrible written down but on stage worked amazingly, Farinelli the man wanted to be seen as different from the voice and so on stage he physically was.  Only in the very last scene did the two men actually interact and that added more poignancy to the piece than anything for me.

While the play was very good I have to say that I did find it a little jarring that despite the setting and costumes all being redolent of the 1700s the language used was entirely 21st century.  It made for some funny moments but did create a little barrier between me and the play.  Possibly a bad attempt at replicating actual speech from the time would have  been just as bad however!

This was a lavish production with not a weak member of cast and a full ensemble piece - something that I would imagine is hard to create when Rylance is the leading man.  His charisma and skill shone through and I am now desperate to see him on stage in a truly modern piece.  Farinelli and the King has a very short run at the SWP and while I'd love to see it transfer so more people could see it the setting was ideal and in a bigger venue the intimacy created here could not be replicated I feel.

Theatre 2014 - Review Forty

'Tis Pity She's A Whore, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, London. December 2014.

It was a very cold and damp December day when Bec and I went to London to see this, and to be honest after our experiences at the SWP earlier this year we didn't go in with high hopes.  The Duchess of Malfi was good, but the seats that time were very uncomfortable, Knight of the Burning Pestle was fun but over long and felt forced by the end and the Young Player's version of The Malcontent was frankly a disappointment and over priced.

This was a different experience entirely, I am not sure if we accidentally picked the best seats in the house or what but we had a good view and missed very little of the action at all and didn't find ourselves wriggling too much to stay comfortable.

The key thing is however that this play was fantastically acted - the space of the theatre was used completely and the scene where all the candles were extinguished was spooky - far more so than in the Duchess of Malfi.  I still can't decide if this play was actually bloodier than Titus Andronicus earlier in the year, or if it just seemed so because the playhouse is so much smaller and we were so close to the action.  No pies in this production but a bloody heart on a sword was waved around for much of the last act!

The only thing I didn't like about this play was the feeling that I couldn't discern what John Ford was actually trying to say.  The Catholic Church certainly came across as corrupt, and sleeping with your sister will drive you insane but I'm note sure beyond that.  The way I 'read' the performance Annabella was almost coerced into sleeping with her brother, and that every time she tried to repent he bullied her back into his arms yet why she should be castigated and called a whore is beyond me.  Politics of the time I guess.  I found it interesting that the audience hissed more as the one anti-Semitic line the play but laughed when the woman was called a whore.  Something to think about and investigate further I feel.

I am pleased that we had a good experience at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse finally, and I am pleased that we have got tickets to one more thing there this winter season.  I do look forward to their first full Shakespeare in the venue however and without wishing my life away hope that that will be a feature of the 2015/16 season!

Theatre 2014: Review Fifteen

The Malcontent. The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London. April 2014.

The Malcontent is almost an experiment by the SWP/Globe as it is performed entirely by children/young adults - like the boy players of Jacobean times.  If it is taken as an experiment then that is all well and good however this was staged, and priced, as all of the other plays this season have been and that is where I have a slight problem.

On the whole the actors were good, the costumes fine and on the whole you could hear all of the voices.  But they weren't, and possibly shouldn't have been, as good as the professionals.  They were a little self conscious, you couldn't tell if pauses were dramatic or where lines had been forgotten and they just weren't as good at the little stage actions that make a play special.  There was also the problem that when you couldn't see the actor it often wasn't possible to tell who was speaking (male or female) due to the unbroken voices.

However that sounds a very harsh review and the more I think about it the more the good parts did come through. I am not alone in this uncertainty about the play as after the interval an awful lot of people in all areas of the theatre did not come back - the first time I have seen this at the Globe or SWP.

I think that many of the problems I have are actually with the theatre space itself.

I said after seeing The Duchess of Malfi that I didn't think there was enough space to sit comfortably in the high priced seats of the upper gallery.  This problem isn't so noticeable in the side sections of the mid or upper galleries however and so I know know to avoid these.

However these more comfortable seats to the side in the upper gallery give such a restricted view that probably a third of the action is missed, plus a lot of what happens in the pit.  From here you are also looking through the candles and it was only afterwards that I notice how uncomfortable this was and both Rebecca and I attribute our headaches to this.

The seats we had for The Knight of the Burning Pestle, to the side of the lower gallery, were very good - if you can be at the back or front and have something to lean on.

I love the physical space of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and I appreciate that in an inaugural season there are things to work out (between my first and second visits for example the slightly padded carpeted benches have been recovered with much softer cushions) but after three plays - one excellent, one good and one okay - I think that I will probably return to try it again but only if I can get the exact seats I want.

Theatre 2014: Review 9

The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London. March 2014.

The last play of the weekend was at the beautiful Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and this time I had a much more comfortable seat - they've improved the cushions and there seems to be more space in general in the lower gallery.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle  was a contrast to all that we'd seen previously and as different from The Duchess of Malfi as can be imagined.  It is a play within a play and then some.

Players are trying to stage their melodrama but a 'citizen' in the audience is not entirely happy about this and insists that his apprentice should have a role. Once poor Ralph has a part the citizen and his wife spend the rest of the play trying to make his role bigger and thus subvert the normal play.

It could be a total mess, and to be honest by the end I'd given up trying to follow what plot there was, but for me it didn't matter as it was so funny, and well acted, that I'd have gone along with anything. Occasionally the ad libs and interactions with the audience felt more 21st century than early 17th but that aside it was fun. Pantomime for grown ups in the best sense and a nice way to finish the weekend.

Three plays, a visit to the British Library, a visit to the British Museum, nice food and a glorious walk along the sunny South Bank was a lot to cram into just over 36 hours but so worth it.  Time to start planning the next mad weekend I think...

Theatre 2014: Review Two

The Duchess of Malfi, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London. January 2014

I've been excited about this play for a long time, and even more so since I have been studying the theatres of the Jacobean era and first of all let me say that this didn't disappoint.

Over the past few years I've seen the outside of the new Playhouse take shape on visits to the Globe and I've also been following in the interior build thanks to the photos posted by The Globe on their website. A quick Google search shows the stages of the build and it has to be said that the CGI projections of what the finished building looked like were accurate but don't do it justice.

Inside it is like travelling in time (except thankfully without the aromas!) the theatre is all made of wood and lit with beeswax candles that are on movable chandeliers as well as some fixed candle sticks on the pillars.  Actors also carry candlesticks with them as they move about the space. The candles are also lit and extinguished throughout the performance so there is the lovely smell of wax and smoke at times too!

Now the play. I saw the Duchess of Malfi in 2012 and liked it very much, although looking back now I remember incidents and the Duchess clearly but the rest of the play and the actors have faded completely from my memory.
The version at the SWP managed to be physically lighter than the version I saw before, despite using no modern lighting. This made the impact of the darker scenes greater as you really noticed when the mood changed, it also meant that the characters themselves were more visible and I found all of the roles easy to distinguish and keep track of. Seeing the actors all of the time also meant that I got into the rhythm much quicker.
The flickering light and small space made the play feel very claustrophobic (in the right way) as an audience member you were complicit in the action and could see every small flicker of emotion on the characters' faces.

The horror scene however wasn't as effective in this version, I had forgotten when it occurred in the play but just didn't buy into the scene at all. However I did have many more goosebumps running up and down my arms throughout the play and it was scarier over all.

This version also lost a lot of the carnality I remember from the version at the Old Vic, however this did mean that we saw the action unfold rather than have it told to us.  Ferdinand's unhealthy obsession with his sister and descent into madness were much clearer in this version, and thoroughly creepy.

It was nice to see some of the main Globe's actors in a smaller space, and also to see similar styles of theatre from the open air stage scaled down but still visible in the new space.

However the new theatre isn't without problems, it feels cramped even after making use of the cloakroom. Leg room is an issue and Mr Norfolkbookworm with his long thigh bones was very uncomfortable. The Globe have always said that no seat in either of their Playhouses has a totally unrestricted view of the stage this is more true in the indoor theatre than ever. We had a very good view of the stage from our favourite area at the back of the Upper Gallery but even leaning forward we couldn't see the pit (unlike at the outdoor theatre) and seeing as the standing spots are twice the price of the Groundling area (listed on line as having the best view for only £5) the view from them appeared to be dreadful.

None of this has put me off, I'm going back in about 6 weeks to see the next Jacobean play performed. I loved the play and the playhouse but with a few reservations about the seating.

This images from Reuters gives a feel for the interior...