Setting out along a grey and choppy Thames with the wind nipping at my ears, I can’t help but wonder if the weather similarly commiserated on this day in 1616 when our greatest playwright breathed his last. Huddling up to fellow Complete Walkers, I gaze up at my first screen and am instantly transported to the candlelit confines of Juliet’s Tomb in Verona, Italy. So arresting is the desperately forlorn Juliet (Jessie Buckley) in this achingly familiar tale that I completely forget about the Americano I’m clutching. Only as Juliet plunges the fatal dagger am I jolted back to reality by the carefree cries of skateboarders zipping around the adjacent undercroft.  

For the weekend of 23 and 24 April, Shakespeare’s Globe has transformed London’s Southbank into a Shakespeare showcase with 37 screens erected along the riverbank from Westminster to Tower Bridge. The outdoor screens feature short film depictions of all Shakespeare’s plays with each having been shot in the authentic mise en scène the Bard had in mind. Filmed scenes have been interspersed with prior Globe theatre productions, as well as archived silent Shakespeare films provided by the British Film Institute, making for richly textured vignettes. 

Under the Golden Jubilee Bridge the spirit of revolt in Henry VI part 2 is cleverly accentuated by jarring images of recent London riots punctuating the speeches of Jack Cade (Neil Maskell) in modern day Spitalfields. The calico beard of Dick the Butcher (Dean Nolan) takes on a life of its own and as the wisecracking villain utters his infamous line “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” a passing train blows its whistle in apparent agreement.  

From the butcher’s knives of Henry VI I graduate to the gory glory of Titus Andronicus. A concerned father quickly diverts his pre-school daughter to the hollow horses of the merry-go-round as blood starts splattering in Shakespeare’s most violent tragedy. Peter Capaldi’s (in the filmed title role) vengeful plotting amongst the crumbling Roman ruins of Ostia Antica is somewhat tempered by the thundering trains passing on the overhead Hungerford Bridge. The compromised sound is however compensated for by the blatant physicality of the stage performance. A mere glance at the nauseated Tamora (Indira Varma) clearly reveals the main ingredient in the succulent pie Titus (William Houston) has just served her. 

The Taming of the Shrew, screened in the Jubilee Gardens, serves as a welcome comical reprieve with Petruchio (Simon Day) sporting an outrageous loin cloth in the 2012 stage production. In stark contrast with Simon Day’s prancing buttocks is the charming film Petruchio (John Light) expertly cajoling his subtly shrewd Katherine (Eve Best) into marriage.  

Trooping from screen to screen I feel like a privileged food critic sampling an incomparable taster menu – an inclusive Shakespeare feast catering not only to the serious aficionado, but also to an unscholarly enthusiast like myself. Before I leave the riverbank I pause to watch Shakespeare’s present-day contemporaries – the acrobats, the busker, the magician – unknowingly celebrating with. I think our Great Entertainer would have approved.