The Globe

When Sam Wanamaker, a young American actor, came to London in 1949 he had an idea in is mind – he wanted to see the Globe, the theatre where all Shakespeare’s plays were performed at the beginning of the 17th century and where Shakespeare himself had minor roles in his plays. He knew that the Globe lay in Southwark, near the south bank of the river Thames, but the only thing he found there was a bronze plaque on the wall of a brewery which said “Here stood the Globe playhouse of Shakespeare”. It was then that Sam Wanamaker conceived the project of building an exact replica of the Globe as a memorial to William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of western civilization. In 1968, the Shakespeare’s Globe Trust was formed and the battle to rebuild the Globe began. It would last up to 1986, when the courts finally decided in favour of the Globe Trust against the Southwark Council. The place where the New Globe lies now in only 200 yards from the place where the original theatre was. The old playhouse was built in 1599 and was destroyed by fire in 1613 during a performance of Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII.