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Since the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opened back in 2014, Shakespeare’s Globe has divided its programming neatly between the outdoor summer seasons and the indoor winter ones. There’s the odd bit of indoor work in the summer, and usually an outdoor family show around Christmas. But no maniac has ever previously tried to stage a single play in both theatres… until now!!
The Globe’s in-house maverick Sean Holmes – formerly of the Lyric Hammersmith – will direct a revival of Shakespeare’s ‘The Winter’s Tale’ in the next winter season (February 9-April 16 2023) that will indeed be split between the candlelit indoor Wanamaker and the roofless Globe Theatre.
Anyone familiar with the play will be aware that the setting and, indeed, tone, shift dramatically between the Sicilian court intrigue of the first half and the knockabout rural larks of the Bohemia-set second. So you can absolutely see the appeal of using two different theatres. We must, however, acknowledge that it’s somewhat ‘bold’ of Holmes to ask the audience to hang out in a half-empty Globe Theatre in the middle of February. It looks great, but for the love of Bard, wrap up warm.
‘The Winter’s Tale’ is the last show in the season, which kicks off with a revival of ‘Henry V’ from director Holly Race Roughan (November 10-February 4 2023), a co-production with the visionary Headlong. Then it’s a new play, ‘Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights’, by Globe writer-in-residence Hannah Khalil (December 1-January 14 2023), based upon the female characters from the ‘Arabian Nights’; it’ll run at the same time as another play from Khalil, the return of her festive Hans Christian Andersen revival ‘The Fir Tree’, which plays outdoors December 15-31. Opening just before ‘The Winter’s Tale’ – and indeed playing in rep with it, albeit indoors only – is legendary horror nasty ‘Titus Andronicus’, directed by the very cool Jude Christian (January 19-April 15 2023). It’ll be the first Globe production of Shakespeare’s spatterfest since Lucy Bailey’s production, which famously sparked mass fainting fits nightly, so brace yourselves.
Public booking for all productions opens Fri Jul 15 at 10am here.
Why is there all this immersive art around in London at the moment?
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