The Complete Walk

I've checked the London Marathon route against the Complete Walks route, there shouldn't be any overlap of routes. Hopefully most of the extra crowds will be on the Marathon route, fingers crossed.

I've got some theatre booked this weekend, so I'll be sitting down with a map tonight to plan my best route. I hope the films all start at the same time and pause for a few minutes between so it's possible to get from screen to screen without constantly finding you've missed the first two minutes. I'd like to see them all, but I'll see how it goes when I get down there.

Am planning to try this on saturday (the weather forecast does not look like it being a kind weekend), I have to be at the palladium in the evening so aim to start early. Have my map but have not yet worked out a route, I guess start one end and just wander as i'm not sure where all of them are. Polly1 do you have any distinguishing features as I'll look out for you. I too anticipate keep appearing mid play and watching it round, am thinking by sunday I'll be flat out by all that slow walking whilst all those energetic people round round London.

If you're planning to do the complete walk today, bear in mind that Obama is visiting the Globe at around 9:45 so might be worth steering clear of that area first thing as I would imagine there will be heavy security and road closures

Just started from Globe towards Southwark

So far - 5 blank screens
2 working fine
1 with video but sound too quiet
2 with sound but no video

I think the potus visit delayed preparations but they could have predicted that I think!

Update - 3 more blank screens

At least I'm getting some exercise

Screen 32 also blank

So are 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37

Final score - saw 2 films, heard audio of 2, and 14 not working at all, 90 minutes after kick off!

I'd recommend leaving it till late afternoon or tomorrow

Update - walked back down towards the globe and a few more screens are working. I guess a combination of last nights bad weather and Obama meant they didn't have time to set up and test.

Would have been better to announce the start was delayed to 12 I think.

The technical issues were working better in the late afternoon, though a couple of screens were still down (Comedy of Errors and Henry V1 Part 1, I'm looking at you.) We did from Jubliee Gardens to Bernie Spain Gardens.
Highlights for me were:
The modern Henry VI, part 2, filmed in Spitalfields and complete with fun facts about severed heads
Romeo and Juliet, with haunting use of an actual tomb
King John (I noticed on the credits this was directed by Michelle Terry): a moving section connecting the death of Shakespeare's son with a speech about the death of a child - beautifully spoken too, while a film of spinning top was shown.
Richard II - James Norton, need I say more? This film was really well edited between the location and Globe versions.
Merchant of Venice: Jonathan Pryce in both the Globe and location versions.

Weaknesses: The sound was better in some locations than others - could hardly make out a word of the Titus Andronicus under the Hungerford bridge, featuring Peter Capaldi.
A bit of a disappointing A Midsummer Night's Dream scene shot on location at Wilton House - Theseus and Hippolyta are hardly who we want to see.

I hope that these short films have a longer life. It would be great if they were downloadable or shown on tv or something.

It was a shame about the dodgy screens (more seemed to be working when I finished late afternoon, only had 4 down I think) but there was a real sense of a festival type event with people having a nice time for free. I was talking to one of the stewards and she had been getting some really nasty comments from people angry about the screens going off - she rightly pointed out the event was totally free, the stewards were all volunteers and all the Globe's paid staff were giving up their weekends to make it happen for the sake of it. They had nowhere near the budget of something like Olympics which has done this sort of thing before, no corporate sponsors, were relying on a lot of goodwill, and they all seemed genuinely devastated by the broken screens.

The ones I did see were really brilliant film-lets and I hope the fact that so many turned up and wanted to see them all will encourage them to put them online or a DVD so we can watch the whole package. My theory is they're holding off announcing this so as not to discourage people going to the event, but hopefully they will announce it next week.

Got from 5 to 28.

Julius and Henry V , and another couple, were AWOL. some screens had dodgy light levels, and putting one under a railway bridge wasn't a sound idea.


Henry V1 part 2 was made wonderfully current.
Henry IV part 1 was top rate comedy.
Richard 11 had two excellent performances from both the recent Globe production and James Norton
Richard 111 was well laid out, with some imaginative use of film, and moving acting.
Romeo and Juliet was outstanding with Jessie Buckley. Take hankies.

Some films made the best of their locations, others focused on showcasing their new actors for this exercise, others ended up showing off the videos of past Globe productions - because they were better. An interesting mix results.

Just a shame the budget, which seems to have bene limited for 37 productions, couldn't run to a n engineer to keep the films showing. i suspect Henry V would have been fascinating on its battlefields - but the fog of war, and lack of an electrician, seems to have made the effort pointless.

Walked it from 10am in the morning to 7 pm when had to start mad dash across london to the palladium, it's the wrong thread but acres of toilets there! I walked the walk 3 times as kept hoping more screens would come on, did 33 out of 37, by then as you like it, JC, Henry V and comedy of errors not on but was much better than first thing when loads were off.

Thoughts
good
Since it was free it was great and there were loads of people doing it and there was rather that mentality when things go wrong and people were happily sharing which screens were working.
The stewards i spoke too seemed surprisingly upbeat since they must have been freezing and i dare say got some agro.
Film highlights - Jessie Buckley in R and J, the henry vi part 3 i think with the father and son, taming of the shrew, toby jones as falstaff, merry wives of windsor (additional brownie point as i got to sit down!) hamlet (liked the idea used there though it seemed to baffle some people), king john, cymberline, alls well, timon
Some great casting, lovely to see people you wouldn't usually get to see doing shakespeare and there were some actors i'd just love to see doing the whole plays

poor
i'm guessing they were limited to sitings but under a railway bridge was always going to be noisy and some where so close together it was hard to focus on what you were watching, probably can't blame the globe for the wedding bells that made alls well bit of a challenge to hear! A few did almost close down routes through so probably just as well it was so cold or they'd have been more ususal sat crowds out perhaps.
The volunteers did seem a bit abandoned, the odd walkie talkie between them might have helped them know what was going on
I don't know if it was coincidence but the biggest problems seemed to be around sites with multiple screens which had the added damper effect when they didn't work. The first time i hit the end only the tempest was working but the police had requested that big switch off as they were worried about crowd control, not sure how that would have worked if all 4 screens had been working

and in the middle
some plays i think had it easier by being in better sites, easier to hear but the time you reached them and the light also played a part, some especially dark films almost disappeared in the sun
thank goodness film has sound now, oh to have lived in the silent age with all those over large gestures

All in all i'm disappointed not to have seen all 37 but am hoping they show them show how after tomorrow, as an idea and for mostly pulling it off i can only salute it and it was nice to so many people engaging, I would suspect the globe should do well for this ticket wise as a lot of their filmed past productions went down very well and i'd guess that would encourage some people to give it a go if they haven't already. I think i was so busy trying to do as much as possible and trying to wear as much as possible that didn't feel at all shakespeared out. If i lived nearer i'd go back tomorrow (today) to try and finish it off but can't really justify just for four screens and there's that small matter of the marathon.

Since I've come down with the lurgy for the weekend I've completely missed this. I'm hoping they put the films online at some point.

It would be nice if they were to put them online in some way, shape or form, but perhaps they just want to keep it to this 'special event'... Though as someone who lives in London but who had other commitments this weekend, perhaps that's just selfish of me! *bats eyelashes at Globe decision-makers*

It was on in Liverpool too - not sure if any other cities did it

In the website they say keep an eye out for announcements on future plans. I'm sure they will end up somewhere - maybe Globe player