Globe Education Online

My good sweet mouse, I commend me heartily to you ...

The Globe is awesome! It’s practically 360 degrees in terms of where your audience can be; the groundlings are standing – their heads are level with the stage – then you’ve got three tiers of seating in an arc. There is covered roof over the seating but you’re completely exposed to the elements if you’re on the ground, and even exposed at some points on the stage. So everywhere you look there is somebody to connect with and it’s a really friendly environment as well - it’s kind of epic and domestic at the same time which is really bizarre.

When you stand on that stage as an actor starting out, there is that fear, thinking “Oh, is it going to be too big for me to manage?” but then you stand there and you think “No, I can actually see everyone”, I’m not very big, my matter doesn’t take up that much space, but you kind of expand and try to encompass it, I saw a lady afterwards and she said “Oh, you look much bigger on stage” and I thought, “Oh, that’s good, I don’t look like a dwarf!” so you have to acknowledge the big space, but think “I’ve got to work you, you can’t work me” then try to command the space and just to enjoy it, just get bigger accordingly.

The Globe really supports your sound, so as long as your thoughts are clear and you’ve got a handle on the language, you can afford to be a bit more intimate. Our touring stage is about a quarter of the size of the Globe stage, so we had to expand and explode the play, that was nice. Sometimes you’re so close to the other actors that you can’t see beyond them, but in the Globe you can see the audience clearly and last night I found that I could have moments with people, which would really inspire the next line. So it was great. The Globe audiences were different, because unlike Brighton - who were very polite and respectful - people at the Globe were laughing throughout, they were so on board, they were wild and raucous and ready, they just got stuck in, they took great big bites out of it and loved it.

At the end there is that rush I’d imagine Wembley has, it’s brilliant. Last night, when the applause went up, I had an absolute body rush, from head to toe, and that was when I realised, “I’ve just played the Globe!” I was bowing and thinking “Don’t cry, come on, keep it together!”** The weather was lovely, I woke up to rain in the morning and I thought “Oh no! my first day at the Globe and its raining”, but then in the afternoon and late evening the sky was like the Simpsons, blue with these lovely white clouds! It was gorgeous, balmy heat and the sun went down just towards the end – we were very lucky.

We’re going to Salisbury at the weekend, in Trafalgar Park. Then we’re doing Bury St Edmunds for a week and then it’s Norway, I think we’re playing a castle over there!

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