The Play’s The Thing

This bundle includes Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night from Shakespeare's Globe's 2012 season 'The Play’s The Thing'.

Henry V

Shakespeare’s masterpiece of the turbulence of war and the arts of peace tells the romantic story of Henry’s campaign to recapture the English possessions in France. But the ambitions of this charismatic king are challenged by a host of vivid characters caught up in the real horrors of war.

Henry V, which opened the new Globe with the words ‘O for a muse of fire’, celebrates the power of language to summon into life courts, pubs, ships and battlefields within the ‘wooden O’ - and beyond.

Much loved for his performance as Prince Hal in Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 (2010), Jamie Parker returns to Hal’s journey as Henry V.

The Taming of the Shrew

Shakespeare’s most outrageous comedy, The Taming of the Shrew introduces one of theatre’s great screwball double-acts, a couple hell-bent on confusing and outwitting each other right up to the play’s equivocal and controversial conclusion.

Twelfth Night

Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters, Twelfth Night combines cruelty with high comedy and the pangs of unrequited love with some of the subtlest poetry and most exquisite songs Shakespeare ever wrote.

The Globe revisits its award-winning Twelfth Night of 2002 with an all-male Original Practices production, exploring clothing, music, dance and settings possible in the Globe of around 1601.

Mark Rylance reprises his performance of Olivia in Twelfth Night, 10 years after its original premiere at Middle Temple Hall and The Globe.