Shakespeare’s Globe filled Westminster Abbey with a free-range assortment of famous – and dangerous – characters for this moving celebration
A brawl broke out in the nave of Westminster Abbey on Saturday night with rival gangs noisily attacking each other. It turned out they were Montagues and Capulets – and members of Intermission Youth Theatre who were launching an extraordinary celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday in a famously sacred space. They were joined by actors from Shakespeare’s Globe and for 75 minutes the audience roamed among the building’s tombs and chapels, suddenly lighting on, or even being accosted by, familiar scenes and characters. Directed by Claire van Kampen, this might be dubbed In Yer Face, Bard.
The abbey seemed the right place for such an event. It is soaked in history: at one point I heard Richard II’s barbed account of Bolingbroke’s exit from London being delivered alongside the king’s own portrait. But the abbey is packed with literary and theatrical associations, too. In Poet’s Corner I stood by plaques commemorating Henry Irving and Laurence Olivier while gazing at Peter Scheemakers’ statue of Shakespeare, who himself seemed to be looking on approvingly as two actors played the Oberon-Titania quarrel scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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