The Globe to Globe Festival ran from 23 April to 9 June 2012 as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, itself part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad during the summer Olympic Games in London. The theme of the London Olympics opening ceremony was “Isles of Wonder”, inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
The Globe to Globe Festival hosted 37 productions of Shakespeare’s plays in 37 different languages over a six-week period. The festival was primarily intended to be an experiment with foreign language Shakespeare in the languages of London, however, it also aimed to discover how important Shakespeare is to the rest of the world. The Festival was recorded through blog responses on the Theatre’s own website and on the Year of Shakespeare blog. More than 100,000 people attended the performances, 80% of whom had not previously been to the Globe.
