Play with fire

Just passing a volcano, as you do, on my way to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. The Playhouse, on the Globe Theatre site in London, was built using 17th century plans for an indoor theatre. It’s small, with a capacity of 340 on bench seats or standing, and productions are lit by beeswax candles and other forms of fire.

My son treated my mum and me to ‘The Secret Theatre’, about intrigue, plotting, double-crossing and surveillance in the time of Elizabeth I. Then it was Catholics vs Protestants and, by extension, England vs almost everyone but the parallels with nowadays were clear (and, over Europe, occasionally laboured).

The reproduction on stage of the Spanish Armada was magnificent. More fire!

‘It’s not enough that men are watched; they must think themselves watched, even when they are not’  


(This was the surprising reflection of light from Tate Modern on the rainy ground outside. Extras are part of my love affair with London.)