The veteran’s award goes to Tom Lawrence, who toured the first manifestation in 2011, then re-joined it in 2012, then did the full two years. That is dedication. Tom is a witty comedian, a great dancer, and a beautiful naturalistic actor. I had little thought he would want to play again, but, an ardent traveller and a great theatre man, from the first he was lobbying to come. After four years of playing everything but Hamlet, he did eventually deliver his prince in New Zealand, which was by all accounts a blinder, and then chose, rather poetically, to leave it there. Another veteran of the 2012 tour was Matt Romain. Our small-scale tours were set up partly to find a way of bringing more young actors into the family. Matt was a find – a sympathetic actor, great with the verse and with a direct truth, as well as a great musician, and mature beyond his years. He is also deeply caring with others and keeps a weather eye out for the mood of all. After the first year, he became our third Hamlet.
The third actor from the 2012 tour was Miranda Foster, our Gertrude. An experienced actress in the West End and the National, she is a classic thoroughbred, though she carries alongside her old-school glamour a streak of anarchy and of innocent generosity, which makes her as much flower child as Dame. She proved a gold standard in terms of setting a high bar of quality, whether in a gilded theatre or on a dusty roundabout. So too would John Dougall, who is the closest thing to pure actor you can find. John travelled the world with the English Shakespeare Company in the late 1980s, the first British company that realised the full potentials of air travel and Shakespeare. They flew hither and thither leaving chaos and children and fun in their wake, the old Comedians of England written large. John likes to dive whole-heartedly into the night of a town but will always be ready to play the next day, with a theatrical verve, a lightly held truth, and a sharpness of wit that wakens the room.
Rawiri Paratene is a king of the Maori acting community, and the star of the film Whale Rider. He joined our International Actors Fellowship in 2009, returned the following year to play Friar Laurence, and in 2012 brought a company to play Troilus and Cressida in Maori for our international festival, one of its many highlights. A father and grandfather to many, and in ways to his whole community, he is an actor of open heart and irresistible fun, and the equal as a man. Keith Bartlett, an actor of long distinction with the RSC and the National and with the Globe, and a man of insatiable curiosity about the world and its workings, was another old friend who came on board. A great actor, he was so struck by the disparities and injustices of what he saw that he has temporarily parked his acting career to raise money for a charity he chanced upon in Malawi. He is working tirelessly to raise money for Mary’s Meals, who feed over a million hungry children per day worldwide in their local school using local labour. All this for £13.90 per year. Check them out at marysmeals.org.uk.
Amanda Wilkin had been in the Tempest and a new play, Gabriel, at the Globe the year before we set off. A statuesque Amazon of a woman of Jamaican heritage, she startled us that year with the quality of her acting; she was also a figure of shining goodwill with a smile for the ages, and it was noticeable how companies arranged themselves around her good-heartedness. Jennifer Leong was recommended to us by a brilliant Cantonese company we had worked with from Hong Kong. Jen is at the opposite end of the statuesque spectrum from Amanda, but is a whirligig of nature, an actress of great grace, and as tough as teak. She is also the most befriended person in the world, and barely a country went by where a friend did not appear. Phoebe Fildes had worked in our department as the music assistant for a while, though a trained actress. We knew her as a bundle of fun and warmth, and had no idea of her quality. She left us to go and join the musical Once, and worked her way up from being an understudy to playing the lead in the West End, and, in contemporary parlance, smashed it. Beruce Khan is a lovely man, of puppy-doggish enthusiasm and good cheer. A fine actor, he, like Amanda, was one of those people that groups organise themselves around. They come to rely on their unflagging energy and brightness to give themselves the life they need. A demented Sunderland supporter, he resolved to have his photo taken in his Sunderland shirt in every country in the world, an ambition he achieved.
For both Ladi Emeruwa and Naeem Hayat, the tour, and shouldering the happy burden of Hamlet, was a huge ask. Something about taking on the role implies that you take responsibility for the whole evening, and hence the tour. We operated a complete ensemble ethic, where everyone was treated equally, but the weight of it flitted through their heads. For advance publicity they had to do the photocalls holding skulls, and the early round of press. I went along to do a television news story with them before we left, and they were both tongue-tied with terror and shaking afterwards. (By the end of the tour they were as practised as old politicians.) They were both too gracious to burden others with their fears, and wore them as lightly as they were able, but the gravity of the job was clearly felt. What was most remarkable was their generosity with each other: they watched each other’s performance, supported each other, discussed the part and grew together. Their Hamlets were different, as different as they are as human beings, but in some way they were brothers.
The four stage managers completed the company. One, Adam Moore, an absurdly able man, had been with the previous two tours and wanted to carry on further. As well as stage-managing, he was acting, dancing and playing three instruments in the show. Two, Dave McEvoy and Carrie Burnham, had worked on previous tours for a while. Carrie is a bustle of energy and willpower; Dave takes the word phlegmatic to whole new places of levelness. Finally, Becky Austin, who had been a stage manager with us for a long time, couldn’t resist the opportunity to get her boots on and go on the road again. A tower of strength and patience, within a system which was not very hierarchical she became a natural leader.
These sixteen (plus an honourable mention to David Tarkenter and Dickon Tyrell, who did a little covering when numbers got thinned) achieved something extraordinary. When we set out, we spoke of finding astronauts – people who could cope with floating around in the space of the world for a couple of years, keep their heads and their hearts steady, and remain focused on their craft. This group exceeded all expectations. They were loyal friends to each other, calm in the face of ridiculous demands, always working to bring the show alive, and always warm and courteous to everyone they met. The hats of the world are raised to them.
For the creation of the show, I have to thank, and copiously, my creative collaborators, Bill Buckhurst, Jonathan Fensom, Laura Forrest-Hay, Bill Barclay, Siân Williams, Kevin McCurdy, Giles Block, Glynn MacDonald, Martin McKellan, Tatty Hennessy and Alex Thorpe. We all shared a bright, sunshiny day at the Globe, where we worked hard at what we did with simplicity and honesty and humility. No one raised factitious arguments about why, or showed off about how, or wondered whether. We simply did. Great bliss it was.
Beyond that was our whole Globe theatre family, a group of people who glad-heartedly made the impossible possible and did it with an insouciant shrug. I have celebrated those specifically attached to the tour, but they all made it work together, and all share in the quiet inner achievement it offers to those close to it. Whatever anyone else may say about us, we did take Hamlet around the world. They are in no informed order: Tom Bird, Lotte Buchan, Helen Hillman, Paul Russell, Wills, Fay Powell-Thomas, Bryan Paterson, Matilda James, Karishma Balani, Jess Lusk, Sarah Murray, Lottie Newth, James Maloney, Tamsin Mehta, Claire Godden, Malú Ansaldo, Helena Miscioscia, Kate Rayner, Kate Ellis, Holly Blaxill, Illaria Pizzichemi, Emily Benson, Rosie Townshend, Chui-Yee Cheung, Elena Krysova, Andrei Manta, Alexandra Breede, Richard Gravett, Marion Marrs, Harry Niland, Megan Cassidy, Pam Humpage. Great friends all. And in the time in which we shared the great privilege of the Globe, all splashed with happiness at being alive and being allowed to make things, and pleased as punch to share that happiness with others.
We were lucky as always to enjoy support and enthusiasm from other areas of the Globe. The research department led by Dr Farah Karim-Cooper w
ere good guides for us as we set out and great companions on the road, particularly Dr Malcolm Cocks, Dr Will Tosh and Dr Penelope Woods. We should also thank Anthony Hewitt and his team for dogged pursuit of money against frustrating odds; Mark Sullivan and team for spreading the word; and a large thank you to Neil Constable, our Chief Exec, for staunch support and unremitting enthusiasm. It would be churlish to exclude the Globe’s beleaguered Board of Trustees from gratitude for backing and continuing to back an impossible venture.
And finally there was, of course, the unspeakable generosity of the world itself – its limitless and mountain-moving curiosity. We finished the tour greatly indebted to several thousand new friends across the globe, whose enthusiasm to join us in this escapade made it achievable. I mention a few – Jerzy, Ekaterina, Ayen, Jama – but they are only representative of individuals in each country who prepared a welcome for us and made the show possible and then special. They made our journey a joyous adventure into the heart of much of the goodness of the world.
For the book, in place of a conventional bibliography, which I’m not sure the scholarship of the book merits, I should state gratitude for much stimulating reading. Christine Schmidle, a former textual assistant at the Globe, allowed me to read and use her hugely thought-provoking thesis on the Comedians of England; Tony Howard is illuminating on huge amounts of performance history, and his Women as Hamlet is a great eye-opener; and we are lucky always for the depth and the brilliance of so much writing on Shakespeare, a field of study interesting for itself, but also as a passport to thinking about so much else. In that field I am indebted to many, but the stimulation provided by James Shapiro, Jonathan Bate and Stephen Greenblatt should be transparent from the text.
Canongate, led by Jamie Byng, have been an invigorating and buccaneer publisher, and I am hugely grateful for the energy with which they have pushed this book into the world. As I am to Patrick Walsh for helping to pull it all together. I have also been honoured by the enthusiasm of Jamison Stoltz of Grove Atlantic in the US. Emma Draper looked at early drafts and helped gracefully as she has done with much of my writing. Bill Swainson edited the work he was handed with a scrupulousness and a rigour for which I am hugely grateful, and did it with a tact and a gentle strength which was exemplary. Ailsa Bathgate has refined it and helped to pull all of the disparate elements together. Jo Dingley carefully shepherded the book through the whole publishing process. I am permanently struck with surprise that such distinguished people bother with my writing.
Much of this was written when I was in a punch-drunk haze shortly before I left the Globe, and in the two months of confusion after. For keeping me on an even keel, and inspiring me to keep going while at the Globe, I have to thank my assistant Jess. For the softest and gentlest cushioned comedown after the Globe in Glasgow, I have to thank my daughter Siofra. For the perfect writing boltaway in Somerset, and for the care shown for my Globe grieving, I have to thank my old friends Quentin and Rowena. For further writing adventures in Madrid, my daughter Grainne. And finally, after many silly wanderings, for the stupidly predictable and needlessly neglected joy of going nowhere, I have to thank my love Sasha, and my daughter Cara. We walk a long way, and then we come home.
INDEX
Abu Ghraib ref1
Abyssinia ref1
Acropolis ref1
Addis Ababa ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7
Aeschylus ref1
Afghanistan ref1, ref2, ref3
Africa ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Central ref1, ref2, ref3
East ref1, ref2
Horn of ref1
North ref1
South ref1
West ref1, ref2, ref3
African Unity (OAU - Organisation of African Unity) ref1
Agnosticism ref1
Al Qaeda ref1
Alexander the Great ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Algeria ref1, ref2
Al-Hussein, Emir Abdullah bin ref1
Allende, Isabel ref1
Almeida ref1
American Film Market ref1
American Navy Seals ref1
Amman ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
East–West caravan route ref1
Amnesty International ref1
Amsterdam ref1, ref2, ref3
Anchorman (film) ref1
Anderson, Laurie ref1
Andrewes, Lancelot ref1
Angkor Wat ref1
Anglicanism ref1
Ansaldo, Malú ref1, ref2
Antoninus Pius ref1
April 23 2014 ref1, ref2
April 23 2015 ref1
April 23 2016 ref1, ref2
Arabs ref1
Arab Spring ref1
Arabian tales ref1
Aristophanes ref1
Arkan (Serbia) ref1
Armin, Robert ref1
Ashour, Ayen ref1, ref2, ref3
Assyria ref1
Athens ref1
Auckland ref1
Austin, Becky ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Australasia ref1
Australia ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Austria ref1
Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom (Cohn) ref1
Aztec architecture ref1
Bab-el-Mandeb (gate of tears) ref1
Babylon ref1
Bad (First) Quarto ref1, ref2, ref3
Bahrain ref1
Balkan states ref1
Ballard, J.G. ref1
Baltic Sea ref1, ref2
Baltic states ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Banderas, Antonio ref1
Bangladesh ref1
Bankside ref1, ref2
Barclay, Bill ref1
Bardem, Javier ref1
Bartlett, Keith ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11
Bartley, Sarah ref1
Basilica San Francisco (Quito) ref1
Bataclan massacre ref1
Bate, Jonathan ref1
Battle of Bosworth ref1
Bedlam ref1
Beijing Beatles ref1
Beirut ref1
Belarus ref1, ref2
Belarus Free Theatre ref1
Belgium ref1
Bend it Like Beckham (film) ref1
Benfield, Robert ref1
Benjamin, Walter ref1
Bergman, Ingmar ref1
Berlin ref1
Bernhardt, Sarah ref1, ref2
Bhutan ref1
Bird, Tom ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Black Sea ref1
Blackfriars Theatre ref1
Blair, Prime Minister Tony ref1
Blessitt, Arthur ref1, ref2
Block, Giles ref1
Blue Mosque ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Blumenthal, Heston ref1
Board of Trustees (Globe) ref1
Bogotá ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6
Bohemia ref1
Bolivar, Simón ref1
Booth, Edwin ref1, ref2
Bosnia ref1
Boston ref1
Bosworth, Battle of ref1
Brand, Russell ref1
Bray ref1
Brecht, Bertolt ref1, ref2
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ref1, ref2, ref3
British Council (BC) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
British Empire ref1
Broadcasting House ref1, ref2
Brook, Peter ref1, ref2, ref3
Bryan, George ref1, ref2, ref3
Bucharest ref1
Buckhurst, Bill ref1
Buckingham Palace Road ref1
Buddhism ref1
Burbage, Richard ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Burkina Faso ref1
Burnham, Carrie ref1, ref2, ref3
Bush, President George W. ref1
Byzantine Empire ref1, ref2, ref3
Cadiz ref1
Caesar ref1, ref2, ref3
California ref1, ref2
Calvary ref1, ref2
Cambodia ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
/>
Cambodian Living Arts ref1
Cameroon ref1, ref2, ref3
Canary Islands ref1
Canibal Collectif ref1
Caracas ref1
Caribbean ref1
Cassady, Neal Leon ref1
Casson, Lewis ref1
Catholicism ref1
Cattrall, Kim ref1
caudillismo ref1
caudillo ref1, ref2
Cecil, William ref1, ref2, ref3
Central Africa ref1, ref2, ref3
Central America ref1, ref2
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ref1
Charge of the Light Brigade ref1
Charles I, King ref1
Charles II, King ref1
Charles, Prince ref1
Chavez, President Hugo ref1
Chekhov, Anton ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Cheney, Dick ref1
Chile ref1, ref2
China ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Chorn-Pond, Arn ref1
Christianity ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Christina, Queen (Denmark) ref1
Churchill, Caryl ref1
Churchill, Prime Minister Winston ref1
Cicero ref1, ref2, ref3
City of London ref1, ref2
Cleansed (Kane) ref1
Clerkenwell ref1
Clive, Kitty ref1
Cohn, Nik ref1
Cold War ref1, ref2
Colombia ref1, ref2
Comedians of England ref1, ref2, ref3
The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare) ref1, ref2
Condell, Henry ref1, ref2
Constantinople ref1, ref2
Hamlet, Globe to Globe Page 34