It’s unlikely, and the result of an intricate and roundabout chain of connections, but it’s there. In the former watch-making town of Prescot, Merseyside, just outside the city of Liverpool, stands a brand new replica of a royal theatre from the time of Shakespeare, a galleried eight-sided volume of sturdy raw oak. It is roofed, unlike well-known Shakespearean theatres such as the Globe or the Rose, and comes with a deep blue calico ceiling that can be installed or removed as desired. Descending brass chandeliers enable, if wanted, candlelit performances.
The Shakespeare North Playhouse, as it is called, is based on the Cockpit-in-Court, first built around 1533 for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn near where 10 Downing Street now stands, as part of what was then Whitehall Palace. It was a place for royal entertainment – first cockfights, and from 1607 and probably earlier, plays, including Shakespeare’s. Around 1629, some time after Shakespeare’s death, Charles I had it made into a permanent theatre to the designs of the pioneer of English renaissance architecture Inigo Jones. It was destroyed in the 1670s.
