To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Shakespeare’s Globe have announced The Complete Walk, a series of specially created short films of each of Shakespeare’s plays.
The films, which will run over the weekend of 23 to 24 April 2016, will be shown for free on screens along the banks of the Thames and will extend from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge.
Produced with the Mayor of London and the British Council, as part of its 2016 Shakespeare Lives programme, The Complete Walk will be filmed on location and feature well-known UK actors. The series will be directed by a selection of young filmmakers and will include new material alongside Globe on Screen titles, footage from the BFI’s Silent Shakespeare films and newly created animation.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, commented how delighted he was to support the project, adding, “Four hundred years after his death, Shakespeare is a titanic figure, whose work still resonates with people of all ages and backgrounds. That is an incredible feat and one that will be rightly celebrated across the world next year.”
The anniversary weekend will also mark the return of the award-winning two year world tour of Hamlet, which will play on the Globe stage for four final performances.
Throughout 2016, the project will be presented in cities across the UK and internationally, after which the films will be accessible on Globe Player.
Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, said: “Shakespeare spent half his life in London, wrote all his plays there, and presented them all beside the Thames…We think it is suitable and fitting that the huge range of his work should be celebrated 400 years after his death in a big free public event, utilising the very latest technology, along a public walkway beside the same dirty old river, so rich with history.”