THE Duke of Marlborough is to open Europe’s first ever pop-up theatre at Blenheim Palace.

Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre will welcome its first audience on Monday, with a performance of Macbeth.

A full-scale pop-up version of the Elizabethan playhouse has been recreated at the Woodstock UNESCO World Heritage Site’s historic grounds for a nine-week season, showcasing four of the bard’s greatest plays.

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A palace spokesman said: “Audiences will also be able to enjoy revived productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth as well as new productions of Romeo & Juliet and Richard III all performed in the 13-sided theatre.”

Oxford Mail:

Inspired by the famous London Rose Playhouse which was built in 1587, 12 years prior to The Globe, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre accommodates an audience of 900, with 560 seated on three tiered balconies around an open-roofed courtyard with standing room for 340 ‘groundlings’.

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There will be food and drink served in the oak-framed and reed-thatched Bear Arms pub, a village pond, farm wagons and carts, and an array of vintage farming implements, evoking a bygone rural age.

Oxford Mail:

For a full performance schedule visit the website blenheimpalace.com/shakespearesRT .