It has been a deeply English week, albeit one of contrasts. One night, we went to the opening of ‘Cartoons and Coronets’, the exhibition of Osbert Lancaster’s work at the Wallace Collection. Lancaster observed Britain’s post-War decline with polished urbanity.
The next evening, we saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe. I had never seen the Globe in operation before. Shakespeare’s England was the reverse of Lancaster’s: gutsy, confident, raw. The Globe, of course, faithfully mirrors the semi-open-air theatre built on Bankside in 1599.
Two things particularly struck me, beyond the performance itself and the need to wrap up warm (how was it, on a chilly October evening, that some actors managed to bare their chests? Brrr...). One was the number of times that Shakespeare refers to globes in the course of the play. As well he might: the play was written the year the Globe opened.
The second was the ingenious use made of an unmechanised stage. Presumably, characters in Shakespeare’s day could have descended on ropes the oddly spectacular way that Puck appeared. There was certainly a trap door in the stage (Hamlet’s father can be heard in the ‘cellarage’). Every time it opened, it made us jump.
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Where in the world is this? — and other pressing questions. It's the Country Life Quiz of the Day, October 14, 2025Test your general knowledge in Tuesday's quiz.
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The secret life of seeds: The little wonders that sustain all life on EarthThey might not be especially striking to look at — if you can see them at all — but seeds are among the natural world’s most awe-inspiring marvels.
