Plays to mark Shakespeare theatre’s rebirth in the UK

The Royal Shakespeare Company will celebrate the multi-million pound transformation of its theatre with two of the Bard’s most popular plays.

There will be a series of small performances at the Stratford-upon-Avon theatre from November but the company’s actors will tread the boards of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre for the first time in performances of King Lear and Romeo and Juliet in February.

RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd said: “Our new home isn’t just about brilliant brick work, inviting public spaces, and nearly trebling the number of ladies loos, though it has those.

“It’s a miraculous marriage of the epic and the intimate, a shared space which celebrates the three dimensions that Hollywood aspires to and live performance has for free, and which enables the direct engagement between the actor and audience demanded by Shakespeare’s plays.”

Visitors will be allowed in from November to see the new auditorium, exhibition spaces and a 36-metre tower complete with a viewing platform so they can see where Shakespeare was born, educated, lived and buried.

One advantage of the £112.8 million project is that the audience will be much closer to the action – with the furthest seat now only 15 metres from the stage.

Mr Boyd said: “We’re going to celebrate the fact that the furthest seat away was 27 metres from the stage by placing a chair in what is now our restaurant where the furthest seat from the stage was.”

He also promised that anyone sitting on the newly upholstered seats would witness “a greater comfort to your buttocks” and praised the “sentimental idea” which saw planks from the old teak stage relaid in the foyer.