Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre as we know it today is in fact the third Globe theatre to have existed in London, with the first famously burning down in 1613 after an over-zealous special effect involving gunpowder went wrong and set the thatched roof alight, and the second, slightly less famously closed by the Puritans in 1642. Back in Shakespeare’s time, plays were performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, whose company included the bard himself.

On a visit to London, American actor and director Sam Wanamaker was astonished that the only thing commemorating Shakespeare’s work was a small plaque and, after a campaign that took half a century, Shakespeare’s Globe theatre as we know it today, opened in 1997, a stone’s throw away from the site of the original theatre on London’s Bankside.

Today, the Globe theatre is a landmark, and the centre of Southbank’s cultural hub that includes Borough Market and the Tate Modern art gallery. Plays are performed in the open air and come rain or shine the work of William Shakespeare lives on.