William Poel made his acting debut in Bristol in 1876. His original surname Pole was misspelled in the programme, and he adopted the spelling of Poel permanently. A great enthusiast of Shakespeare, he was instructor of the Shakespeare Reading Society for over a decade. Poel had strong convictions of how Shakespeare’s works should be performed, including the staging. He planned to build a replica of the Globe Theatre as a memorial to Shakespeare. This drawing by Poel is for a preliminary model of the theatre. It was finally utilised sixty years after Poel’s death during the 1990s reconstruction of the Globe.
- Item reference: TCP/M/000032
- Copyright: University of Bristol
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