Shakespeare Staging the World exhibition at the British Museum

William Shakespeare’s influence on society and the arts is immense, remaining to this day an icon in literature, theatre, storytelling and morality. The Shakespeare Staging the World exhibition set to come to The British Museum in the summer of 2012 will bring back Shakespeare’s London and look at the impact his work had on the British national identity.

Looking at his work from a new angle, the angle of London on the world stage, the exhibition gives an insight into the city as it was 400 years ago. Using objects drawn from The British Museum’s huge collection and from other collections throughout Europe, the landscape of the late 16th and early 17th centuries will be brought under the museum’s massive microscope.

Through the scrutiny of Shakespeare’s work, the objects and art that will be drawn together for the exhibition will be looked at in a whole new way. With the theatre stage as the looking glass on the history of the objects, the development of London and the evolution of the British identity, Shakespeare Staging the World gives a whole new perspective on the past.

Part of the London 2012 Festival in the shadow of the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Shakespeare Staging the World exhibition opens on the 19th July 2012 and runs through until the 25th November 2012. Tickets are already on sale and cost £10 and £7 concession.

The image above is curtesy of the British Museum. It features The Lyte Jewel (open, enamelled gold with diamonds and containing the king’s miniature) by Thomas Hilliard. Made in London and presented to Thomas Lyte in 1610 in thanks for his royal genealogy tracing James’ descent, through Banquo, from Brutus, the mythical Trojan founder of Britain. James VI and I claimed descent from Brutus and Aeneas of Troy via Banquo, whose murder is a key element in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Waddesdon Bequest in 1898 to the British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum