A bit of culcha, innit

We enjoyed an evening of high culture last night at the Globe Theatre, watching Romeo and Juliet. It was the first time either me, or the Other Half, had been inside the building and it won’t be the last.

It is great. The area in front of the stage is standing only and the circular walls have three or four tiers of seating in the form of wooden benches. Luckily, we were seated half-way up and under cover as a localised monsoon blew over during the show, soaking the crowd. Also, the play was three hours long so, despite giving you a slightly numb arse, it is definitely worth splashing out on a seat.

While we were waiting for the performance to start, Elizabethan-style musicians played and, apart from the rustle of plastic macs, it was almost like we had time-travelled.

I really enjoyed the show. Juliet was quite fiesty and Romeo a bit of a geezer. Admittedly, the only other version I have seen starred the Leonardo di Caprio so I don’t have much to compare it too, but I thought it was a good effort. Lots of laughs (although I get the impression from critics that this is not quite the idea), acceptable performances and wonderful costumes.

During half-time, or should I say the interval, we stood in the courtyard outside and tried to image how different London would have been in Shakespeare’s day.

I imagine it would have stunk. I mean, the air in the toilets alone would have been enough to peel paint ...