Dame Judi Dench will this week open the largest ever exhibition devoted to Shakespeare, at the Globe Theatre on Bankside. Twelve years ago she drove the digger to start work on Sam Wanamaker's ambitious project, and on Thursday she will launch its latest feature.
Visitors can try their hand at writing with a quill or composing a sonnet. They can meet craftsmen who built the Globe. Through micro-camera technology they can even "join" the acting company in rehearsal then take a central role during a performance, surrounded by an audience.
There will be demonstrations of Elizabethan stagecraft and swordplay. On display will be Shakespeare's will and other original documents, as well as reproductions of Elizabethan instruments and costumes. A new riverside entrance will take visitors down to an open central area, dominated by an oak tree and richly embroidered New Zealand hangings.
The exhibition, in the cavernous space beneath the theatre, has cost £6.5 million, of which almost £1 million came from the Lottery and the rest was raised by the Globe itself. The Globe needs to raise a further £7 million for projects including the complex's second theatre, the Inigo Jones, an education centre in Bear Gardens and a library resource centre.