An eccentric part of the landscape

Robert Gore-Langton talks to an irreverent Dominic Dromgoole about the Globe

A few months ago I was at a literary festival on a drama panel which featured a senior actress of the stage. She was holding forth about working with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford when I suggested that Shakespeare’s Globe was just as hugely popular but nobody took it half as seriously. ‘Ah, well, you see there’s a feeling in the industry that it’s all a bit twee — you know, a bit heritage Shakespeare,’ she said.

‘Patronising cow,’ I thought at the time, while laughing along sycophantically. But she probably spoke for most of her generation to whom Stratford is the sacred temple of Shakespearean excellence. A dubious claim these days. But the Globe has over the past ten years undeniably worked its way into the public affection. It was a mad dream which is now a hugely successful reality and an eccentric part of the theatre landscape.