In 1970 American actor and director Sam Wanamaker founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust and International Shakespeare Globe Centre. The objective behind the project was to build a faithful recreation of Shakespeare's Globe close to its original Bankside, Southwark location. After 20 years of perseverance a new Globe theatre, designed on the research of historical advisor John Orrell, was eventually created. Finally opening in 1997 under the name Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the now iconic landmark of London stages plays every summer (May to October).

Mark Rylance held the position of first artistic director of the modern Globe in 1996, until Dominic Dromgoole took over in 2006. One of Dromgoole's new commissions for 2008 is Glyn Maxwell's play Liberty - a story of an idealistic young magistrate, set during the French Revolution.

Liberty synopsis

April 1793, the French Revolution is four years old and the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre finds threats to national liberty at home and abroad. When the young magistrate Gamelin joins a group of old friends for a picnic outside Paris, the ties of love and affection can take the strain. But how strong will they prove when Gamelin is given power over life and death, and the new republic plunges from high idealism to mob rule and state terror? Private jealousies and public fears, old alliances and new ideologies, panic legislation and political correctness all combine in this adaptation of Anatole France's 1912 novel Les Dieux ont Soif.

Liberty Cast and Crew

Directed by Guy Retallack
Designed by Ti Green
Composed by William Lyons
Choreographed by Paul Harris

Cast

Kirsty Besterman Rose
John Bett Maurice
Gregory Gudgeon Citizen
Belinda Lang Louise
Edward Macliam Phillipe
Ellie Piercy Elodie
Jonty Stephens Citizen
David Sturzaker Evariste

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