New play on Shakespeare premieres at The Other Place

Playwright Nick Wilkes and his Malvernbard Theatre Company are performing his new work, To Build A Wooden O, at the RSC’s The Other Place until Saturday, 21st October.

The play sheds light on Shakespeare the man at work, and it’s quite the success story… To Build a Wooden O is set in 1598 and tells the story of why the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s playing company, made the move from the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch to building The Globe Theatre in Southwark. In this harsh and dangerous policed Elizabethan state they hatched an audacious plan with the highest of stakes, all while Shakespeare was writing his new play, a little history piece called Henry V.

Nick says: “History has made Shakespeare immortal, revered and almost deified, but here we finally meet him as a working writer, actor, just one of a company of men, all of whom are making history on the new and exciting Elizabethan stages. Richard Burbage, Augustine Philips, Edmund Shakespeare, Peter Street… It’s a great insight into how I believe the theatre companies of the day worked, lived, cheated and dared to be the people that history has recorded them as.”

Evening performances take place at 7.30pm, with Thursday and Saturday matinees at 1.30pm. Tickets are £15, £14 concessions, and available from the RSC box office on 01789 403493.