March 20, 1999

Stings’ wife Trudie Styler recently organised a charity event at Shakespeare’s reconstructed Globe Theatre. The evening managed to raise a whopping £100,000. REG was one of the guests, along with Sting, Jimmy Nail, Ethan Hawk and the cast of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, to name but a few. I was kindly alerted to this event by Dave and Wendy who run Sting’s fabulous stingchronicity website, and I’ve swiped the parts of their report which relate to REG. I’m sure they won’t mind, especially if you check out their website and read the full story….here goes my snipped version.

The stage was bare apart from some wooden benches to the back, and the only instruments on stage were a harpsichord, a lute and a double bass, although a team of minstrels were in the gallery playing shwarm’s, sackbuts and cornettos. Two spotlight stands stood on the stage, but there was no amplification. The actors had to work to project themselves to all parts of the crowd, overcoming natural and man-made elements as they coped with the open air venue, jets on the flightpath to Heathrow, and even some arsehole with a mobile phone.

The bell tolled, and all of the cast, wearing brown, purple and orange monk habits walked on to the stage form both sides, up to the crowd and then back to the wooden benches. The entire cast was Sting, Richard E Grant, Jack Dee, Ethan Hawke, Vanessa Redgrave, Mark Rylance, Jimmy Nail, James Taylor, Paul Scofield, The Lock Stock Boys (Jason Flemying, Jason Statham, Nick Moran, Dexter Fletcher and Vinnie Jones), Lulu, Miranda Richardson, Imogen Stubbs, Layla Khalif, Simon Russell Beale, Lennie James, and Ian Talbot.

The first act starred Jack Dee and Richard E Grant in a comedy sketch “A Small Rewrite” written by Black Adder author Richard Curtis, where Shakespeare (REG) is harangued by his producer (Dee) because at five hours, his latest play is a tad on the long side and could do with some brisk editing.

REG then later appeared in another really funny comedy scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Sc1”, in which Jimmy Nail played Quince the Carpenter, Ian Talbot a very funny Bottom the Weaver, Ethan Hawke played Flute the Bellows-mender, REG took the part of Snout the Tinker, Vinnie Jones was Starveling the Tailor, and Sting the meek and stuttering Snug the Joiner. Mark Rylance then performed as Oberon and Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Sc1”, before the whole cast scattered sweetpea petals over the audience.

To read the full report at the stingchronicity website, click here.