Shakespeare Globe

Read Not Dead

Globe Education began its series of stage readings of plays in 1994. Since then audiences have been able to see and hear over 150 plays written between 1567 and 1642 by Shakespeare's contemporaries. These 'performances with scripts' are staged by professional actors and directors.

Time: 3pm - c.6pm
Venue: Nancy W Knowles Lecture Theatre
Tickets: £8 (£5 FoSG/concs/students)

Homer - The Iliad

by George Chapman (1614/15)
Sunday 23 August

Complementing the 2009 production of Troilus & Cressida.

George Champan’s translation of Homer was published in stages, with the first selection, Seven Books of the Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets appearing in 1598. Shakespeare did not wait for the rest of the books before taking the material he needed for Troilus & Cressida. Faced with Homer’s ‘wide expanse’, John Keats wrote, ‘never did I breathe its pure serene / Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold.’ And speak out loud he will.

Professor Tom Healy (University of Sussex) will provide an introduction and will link extracts from 'the seven books' read by Globe actors.

An Humorous Day's Mirth

by George Chapman (1597)
Sunday 6 September

Complementing the 2009 production of Love's Labour's Lost.

One of the biggest theatrical hits of the late 1590s, and the originator of the popular ‘humours’ comedy, exploited by Ben Jonson and others.
Also known as The Comedy of Humours, An Humorous Day’s Mirth follows Love’s Labour's Lost in its French setting and its emphasis on wit and folly, but creates a new style of comedy in its parade of melancholics, paranoid husbands and wives, would-be puritans and fools, orchestrated by the caustic ringmaster, Lemot. ‘The sky hangs full of humour’, and our role is to watch, listen and laugh.

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