Colin Firth in Shakespeare in Love

Shakespeare in Love is set in London in the summer of 1593, against the historically authentic background of the rivalry between two theatre owners; Philip Henslowe and Richard Burbage [portrait above].

Richard Burbage (played by Martin Clunes) was leading actor and part sharer of the Lord Chamberlain's Men who performed at theTheatre, which Shakespeare had joined when he came to London in the 1580s.

1598 the Theatre was demolished and Burbage transported the framing timbers across the Thames and built the Globe 1599, where it became "the glory if the Banke" with Shakespeare as one of eight share owners.

The Globe became the playhouse for which Shakespeare wrote his greatest plays and the theatre prospered until disaster struck 1613 and the Globe burned down during a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII.

Henslow (played by Geoffrey Rush, above) managed the Rose Theatre for a group of actors called the Admiral's Men, where Edward Alleyn [played by Ben Affleck, below] was the star.

This sketch is the only existing contemporary image of an Elizabethan theatre interior, made by a visiting dutch student De Witt during a performance at *The Swan Theatre* 1596, one of London's many Bankside theatres at the time.	Picture above show the interior of"The Rose" in Shakepeare in Love. After filming, Judi Dench took care of the set. At the Oscars she said during a backstage interview that she found the set "so beautiful and so solid and so like the Rose. And I was so struck by the set that I said to David Parfitt on the first day I was filming:'You can't possibly break this up', so at the end of the film he gave it to me. I've been paying for it to be restored /.../ and now I've just got a home for it". It will be put up on the site of the Old Collins Music Hall in London in Islington Green, and it will be used by drama students through their training. Usually the Elizabethan theatre interiors were a blaze of colour. As early as 1577, Thomas White describes the playhouses as "sumptuous". To the Elizabethans, the theatre was an image of the universe. The stage was the earthly region where humans played out therir comedies and tragedies. Beneath the stage lay Hell, out of which devils or ghosts would emerge through a central trap door. The audience ate and drank throughout performances, interrupted at will, broke into fights and hissed and clapped the action. Reports probably highlight the more rumbustious incidents. Audiences must have felt safe since all sorts of people "old and young, rich and poor, master and servant, papists and puritans" came to the *Globe*. [John Chamberlain , 1624] Those who stood below the stage payed a penny while the seated audience, who entered through a separate entrance, paid another penny. And those who wanted the best, cushioned seats, paid yet another penny. [Thomas Platter, 1599]
On this engraving from 1600 we see *the Swan* to the left, *the Rose* [misnamed the Stare] and the now reconstructed *Globe Theatre*. [Map: The Royal Library, Stockholm]	The Elizabethan playhouses had plain, limewashed exterior walls. Picture above show the"The Rose" in Shakepeare in Love. Click here to read more about present day plans for the Rose.
Many Elizabethan actors wore expensive and elegant stage clothes, very often hand me downs from the nobility to their servants, who then sold these clothes to the playhouses. There are also records that show that Shakespeare was given clothes from the court. Picture right show Judi Dench getting ready to play Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love. Costume designed by Sandy Powell.