Forget the telly and the cinema - you can't beat live theatre. Today in 1603, Will Shaxsper was putting on his Henry V at the Globe Theatre and when the king came on, a real cannon was fired using real gunpowder. So far, so dramatic but unfortunately the place caught fire and burned down. Interviewed by The Stage the playwright said, 'These things happen. You can't write Hamlet without breaking a few eggs.'
In other news ...
What possessed this great country of ours to wait until today in 1801 to carry out the first census? Wouldn't 1800 have been neater? Or 1810? Incidentally, for the record, in 1801 there were 26,816 Jedi knights in the country. Where are they now?
