The fantastically named Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of the Globe Theatre, has recently announced the line up for their 2006 theatre season, and it's a bit of a corker.
Under the theme "The Edges of Rome" the Globe will be staging Coriolanus ("Shakespeare’s greatest political play"), Titus Andronicus ("Spectacularly, even grotesquely, violent and daringly experimental"), Antony & Cleopatra (although Antony has been spelt with an 'h' on the Globe website...tut tut), and The Comedy of Errors ("a hectic tale of violent cross-purposes, furious slapstick and social nightmare").
There are also two new plays included in the season. One of which is Howard Brenton's In Extremis... but we're going to ignore that because the other one is about pirates!
Simon Bent's Under the Black Flag is billed as a "wild tale of high seas and low politics, which exposes the class hatreds and religious hypocrisy of the 17th century," and promises to be the theatrical event of the year (if you're into pirates):
Scraps of Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest all find echoes in the disordered mind of John Silver as he plies his violent trade along the Barbary Coast, turning every political enmity to his advantage and dodging the knife of his ruthless pursuer, Captain Mission. Based on the real life cutthroat of Stevenson’s Treasure Island and set around the historical pirate republic of Rabat, this wild tale of high seas and low politics exposes the class hatreds and religious hypocrisy of the 17th century.
And if that's not enough to entice you, bear in mind that "The production features bare flesh and filthy language." You didn't get any of that in Captain Pugwash did you?
For details of performance dates and times for the Globe go here.
