Since its opening in 1997 the Shakespeare’s Globe has been one of my favourite entertainment venues on the London Southbank, with very enjoyable performances of Shakespeare’s plays during the summer. The theatre is open-air, hence subject to the unpredictability of London weather. Still a very enjoyable experience for theatre lovers.

My recent discovery has been the indoor theatre, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, built within the same complex and inspired by the same idea of recreating theatre spaces of Elizabethan and Jacobean period.

This much smaller theatre, with a seating capacity for 340 people, is candle-lit and offers a very atmospheric ambience for performances where the audience is very close to the stage and the actors.

Built as a representation of the sixteenth-century Blackfriars Theatre, which stood on the opposite side of the Thames and was demolished in 1655, at the onset of the English Civil War, this reconstruction provides the perfect venue for the staging of plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe and other playwrights active during this Golden Age of English theatre.