Around Town

The Globe is celebrating the Bard’s 444th birthday with three days of Elizabethan merry-making, centred around an open day on Saturday, with giant pass-the-parcel, Footsbarn Theatre’s high-spirited show ‘A Shakespeare Party’ which cherry-picks ‘all the juicy bits’ from ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and more, plus your chance to briefly tread the boards and utter Will’s words of your choice. 

 
Also on Saturday, comedian Arthur Smith and singer-lutenist Rick Jones mark the occasion with a lecture/performance about his inspirational predecessor John Gower, the ‘first English poet’. Gower, who died 600 years ago, was a friend of Chaucer until they fell out over the latter’s predilection for smut.

 
And once the festivities are over you can still get your Shakespeare fix at the Roundhouse, which is showing all the history plays in order until May 24.