All the world's a stage

POLAND Construction work has finally started on a unique project in Poland: The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre. The Baltic seaport might strike readers as an unlikely setting for such a building - the city of shipyards and Solidarity strikes is not generally associated with Hamlet and King Lear.  Au contraire! In fact, it turns out that in the early 17th century Gdańsk was in fact an actual venue for performances of the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson by troupes of English actors. The plays were obviously popular enough for the actors to build a permanent venue in the city, based on the Fortune theatre in London. The theatre they built lays claim to having been the only authentic Shakespearean theatre ever built outside England. The original building was demolished around 200 hundred years ago and the site eventually used as a car park for the Polish secret service, which still owns part of the land. This is now to be the site of a new theatre honouring its predecessor. To be