"I would have the kids take in a Shakespeare play here in this replica of his original Globe"

The Globe doesn't open in February. The largely open-air theatre operates only from mid-April to late September.

The Sam Wanamaker Theatre, a covered playhouse that shares the site and operates almost exclusively when the Globe's closed, is currently intended NOT to show Shakespeare.

It's rare indeed, though, to be in London and not find some other bit of the subsidised theatre empire (like the National, the RSC at the Barbican, the Old Vic, the Almeida, the Donmar Warehouse or dozens of others) showing Shakespeare.

yes, that's what I indicated, flanneruk.

I think those potboiler non-Shakespeare plays are in many ways much more enjoyable than the Shakespeare ones. More blood, more revenge, more murder.

Shakespeare: overrated ;)

An interesting thing about the Globe museum or exhibition or whatever they call it the exhibits cast great doubt on who Shakespeare really was - that the one attributed to the plays simply did not have the education in classics, etc to write such stuff - pointing to the Earl of Something as a likely candidate.

menachem, butting in here: I wish I could be in town for Duchess of Malfi, but plan to see Knight of Burning Pestle. I assume these productions are of Globe high quality?

"the one attributed to the plays simply did not have the education in classics, etc to write such stuff - pointing to the Earl of Something as a likely candidate."

Only if you're uninformed enough to believe education in the Tudor grammar school Shakespeare attended was as awful as it is in today's comprehensive schools.

It wasn't. All you need to know about the theory that de Vere, Earl of Oxford, wrote his plays is that the idea was invented by a man called Looney.

Knight of Burning Pestle is played by the Young Players, a Globe troupe of 12 - 16 year olds. I for one would be interested in seeing them play.

Only if you're uninformed enough to believe education in the Tudor grammar school Shakespeare attended was as awful as it is in today's comprehensive schools.

It wasn't. All you need to know about the theory that de Vere, Earl of Oxford, wrote his plays is that the idea was invented by a man called Looney.>

Well flanner old chap what I wrote is the same as what I read at the Globe so they are as idiotic as me - I am surprised that they got it so wrong but not surprised you got it so right - tell it to the historians who no doubt researched the topic a whole lot more than you or flannerpoosch no doubt has done.

Ha, thanks menachem.

Around here, USA Midwest, this might be thought too racy for under 17 year olds. I took my similar age drama class kids to A Flea In Her Ear dress rehearsal one time, and the management made the youngest girl sit out in the lobby with her mama.

I think Greenwich and its myriad of offerings would be fun for everyone - cross the meridian into another hemisphere - see the home of time - visit the Cutty Sark - tour the old Naval College grounds - some of which are a museum now with really sweet stately classical buildings on the Thames.

And then walk thru the Greenwich foot tunnel - one of the oldest pedestrian tunnels in the world and an eerie experience and then hop on the Docklands Railways - uniquely at this point built on pillars as it slices thru the renovated Docklands - these are driverless trans so you can sit in the front seat like a driver would!

Fun for all - DLR takes you back to London - take a boat or train or tube to Greenwich for a great day out.

https://www.google.com/search?q=dock...=1600&bih=1074

http://www.carnaby.co.uk/store/soccer-scene

Are the kids into soccer? If so maybe a visit to Carnaby Street - the famed shopping street that was trendy in the 1960s and now has bounced back has on it Soccer World where they can buy all kinds of jerseys, etc.

"tell it to the historians who no doubt researched the topic a whole lot more than you or flannerpoosch no doubt has done"

They're not historians.

No serious English scholar or historian takes Looney's theories seriously. Any exhibition designer who does is merely demonstrating the snobbery the English theatre establishment has to working-class education.

All products of Britain's weird private school system, British actors reflect that caste's belief ordinary schools must be awful. They often are these days - but absolutely weren't in Tudor Stratford.

Shakespeare's school provided a deeper education in the Classics than most (I'd go as far as to say any) modern universities - and I'll guarantee I know more about modern university Classics courses than any exhibition designer.

It's simply not true that there's anything in Shakespeare a 16th century pupil at King Edward VI School Stratford wouldn't have learned.

And there's no evidence at all that an 8 year old impubes at Queens' Cambridge (like de Vere) would have learned any of it.

In any case it just don't matter who writ those plays - the Globe Experience would be very educational in many ways for teens who will no doubt have to suffer thru reading them at some time in their academic careers!

"In any case it just don't matter who writ those plays"

It does. Taking Looney's snobbery seriously means failing to understand the intellectual revolution the Tudors - of both faiths and Elizabeth's - brought to ordinary Englishpeople.

Shakespeare was taught, from 7 to 14, almost entirely in Latin, by Catholics (during Elizabeth's reign), 5.5 days a week, 11 hours a day, 44 weeks a year. No group of ordinary people in recorded history had ever been so intensely educated as the children of craftsmen in Tudor English small towns.

The prime reason the British colonies in the Americas moved effortlessly to democracy (while those colonialists' cousins back home invented the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, but other countries' American colonies became slave-dominated plantations) is that heritage of widespread literacy and love of learning. Not to mention, for much of Elizabeth's reign, religious tolerance (till that fool Pius V stuck his oar in).

Looney wasn't just an idiot. He tried to deny what made England special. In a civilised world, he'd have been hung, drawn and quartered.

"In any case it just don't matter who writ those plays">

I meant for a school student being forced to read them - they could care less is The Bard or David Cameron or David Beckham wrote them - that was my point!

Boring and archaic to teens is boring and archaic no matter who wrote them - even the Queen though I doubt her edikation equals that you say the Bard of Avon had.

. . . forced to read them? When one sees the plays performed as they were meant to be, they are neither boring nor archaic. If students were taught to look forward to learning rather than preprogrammed to dread it, learning would be a lot easier and a lot more fun.

Pal, did they bring in Christopher Marlowe, too?

carolyn as an English major in college I had to ready every D Shakespeare play and found most of them somewhat intriguing in plot but generally boring and archaic and wishing we could have studied something more contemporary - I mean why Shakespeare - does not say much if the peak of the English language literature was written by a country bumpkin around 1600 and nothing has equaled it since!

Being forced to watch a Shakespeare play was even more boring than having to read one.

Yup the pinnacle of English literature - 1600s and all downhill since! My campus has a Arthur Miller Theatre named for an alumna and a year of his plays would be just as justified as some old English bloke writing in a language that few can fully understand.

If you can't stand Will's plays, read his sonnets then. Ye Gods!

Anyway, if Greenwich is going to be a destination, I'll add the wonderful Maritime Museum, especially its display devoted to amateur yachting.

http://www.rmg.co.uk/national-mariti...all-galleries/

Oh my. Love love love Shakespeare. Was privileged to read his work to experience the plays and the poetry, though admittedly I never did take to Titus Andronicus.

Such wordplay, such spectacle, so many fluent and iconic references, such perception of human behavior. Even the parts where I needed the OED next to me to clarify the less familiar language I found it gratifying.

Time to view _Shakespeare in Love_!

I saw Titus Andronicus on stage: splatter movie! And there was much more blood and gore in acting in Elizabethan days. Intermissions were enlivened with bear baiting and dog fights.

If you go to Salisbury and check out the cathedral (both of which I highly recommend!), take a few minutes and go to Chapter House which holds one of the (arguably) 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta.

You can tell your teens that JayZ named his last album after it!