Sixteen years [blimey] since the opening of Shakespeare’s Globe at Bankside and the thatched O has a baby brother - welcome to the wonderful Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
The growing Globe global empire has opened what is believed to be the world’s only replica of an Elizabethan playhouse. It’s a theatre within a theatre, utilising the inner space of indoors at the Globe and squeezing in a modest 340-seat performance space.
Named after the American film director that made The Globe dream a reality, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse makes The Globe… sustainable. It’s similar to the lido model in opening up the inner gym; the building now has a use for 52 weeks of the year.
Great detail has been taken when building the baby Globe. The story goes that the plans are based on some sketchings that fell out of the back of an old library book in the 1960’s.
Beautiful oak beams provide the main support. The modern world is left behind as you enter the chamber. Candles provide the only source of lighting, lifted and then lowered to lighten or darken the mood. Globe legend has it that hairspray is not allowed for the actors on stage.
The audience experience is equally as intimate. You aren’t watching a performance - you become part of it. The proximity to the actors is intense. Eyeball to eyeball; any performance of Richard III is going to get a little too close for comfort.
“Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes…”
It’s like having a professional Shakespeare company come to your front room to put on a show. You even get a little storage space behind your seat for your booze.
Chin chin.
I paid the cheapo price of £12 for a standing ticket for a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle. It costs £7 more than that of a Globe groundling, but 340 punters need to make it pay for the company.
In return I was given a viewing platform at the very top of the Playhouse. It was similar to the safe-standing rail terraces that define German football grounds. You have a barrier to lean against as you shuffle your feet throughout the three-hour performance.
Not that the staging of Francis Beaumont’s 1607 parody was anything to get restless about. This production of The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a crowd pleaser right from when Jacobean Gaw Blimey Geezer played by Phil Daniels (OI!) opens the play, all the way through until the hey nonny nonny dancing close.
Even the lighting of the candles becomes part of the performance. The Elizabethans weren’t that great on health and safety…
The story itself is an incredibly early forerunner to breaking the fourth wall. Phil Daniels’ grocer character from The Strand starts off as part of the audience, and then steps forward to offer a 17th Century take on Class War.
This is a play within a play within a play. It is littered with Transpontine references, such as the Southwark Waites. It is perfect as one of the opening productions at the new Bankside theatre.
The slapstick literally falls over you in such a warm space. It is intimate, without being intimidating.
The campness of Sir Humphrey the Cad is delicious. His opening line to a peasant as he ponces to the front of the stage dressed pretty in pink is ravishing:
“Walk around me.”
But it is the Strange Cult of the Dancing Ginger Man that steals the show. Master Merrythought is a middle-aged man fond of his booze and happy to do nothing but sing and dance all day. He reminded me very much of the Dulwich Hamlet Rabble.
And so the annual ritual of selecting tickets for The Globe has just got slightly more complicated.
Or has it?
BUY up the summer season, BUY up the winter hibernation at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
“Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud;
And after summer evermore succeeds
Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.”