Hogwarts

Who's on first?

All the world's a stage...

..and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.

It is pretty stirring indeed inside shakespeare's globe theatre on the southbank. We learned some fun facts, for example if you were to come and see the play as a poor commoner (groundling) standing in front of the stage, you would pay a penny. They would squeeze in up to 1000 groundlings in the yard, sweaty, stinky, unwashed commoners with no toilet facilities, so the term 'penny stinkard' was coined. The same ticket today is a mere £5 which should actually be closer to £7, so a bargain to be had. Its on my list now, should have crossed this off years ago, but who wants to come back and join me?

Not that I should need a reason to go to the globe, but Jake is to make a shakespeare poster for school and I thought...why not inspire him? Jake asked a question about the trap door (also known as hell) and learned it was opened underneath by a big oak beam being pulled at just the right time. Also found it interesting that the marble looking columns are actually made of wood, green oak trees.

That was our morning tour, after lunch we went aboard the golden hinde for 2 hours of pirate fun:)

The golden hinde is a reconstruction of a ship that Sir Francis Drake went around the globe in 1577. There were no original plans of the ship, so architects researched manuscripts, journals and tudor ship building techniques which took 5 years to complete. 

Jake & Oliver got to join the crew, raise the anchor, clean and fire the cannons and find the treasure hidden in the ship! And they played some fun games, like sneak up on the captain grab his stick/club that he dropped and sneak away backwards, freezing like statues when he turned. The first mate liked to talk using silly words and numbers, pick her nose, tell fart jokes, generally keep 30 kids giggling the entire time:)

Perfect day to start our easter holidays!