
The Milky Way Shakespeare North
June 7 @ 10:00 - June 8 @ 16:00

This weekend event, led by Peter and Sarah Dawkins, will take place on Saturday in Prescot, Merseyside, and on Sunday in St Helens, Merseyside.
In Prescot we will visit the Shakespeare North Playhouse, a new playhouse that opened in 2022. This 21st century playhouse is built near to the site and in commemoration of an earlier 16th century Elizabethan playhouse that was built and owned by Richard Harrington, the tenant of Prescot Hall and younger brother of Percival Harrington, the deputy steward of Prescot. The Elizabethan playhouse was located on the edge of Knowsley Hall estate, the chief residence of the Stanley family, Earls of Derby and stewards of Prescot, who maintained their own acting company until 1609. The playhouse was built sometime between 1593-5 and remained in theatrical use until 1609.
As no architectural plans survive for the original Prescot Playhouse, the new theatre’s layout is based on the 1629 design by Inigo Jones for the Cockpit-in-Court theatre in the Palace of Whitehall, London.
On Saturday we will have a guided Heritage tour of the Shakespeare North Playhouse in the morning, followed by lunch. In the afternoon there will be talks followed by a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the evening.
On Sunday morning we will explore the Witches’ Brew Animal Trail in Prescot town centre, to see if we can find the sculptures of the animals that were included in the witches’ brew of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
After this, we will travel to nearby St Helens where the phenomenal award-winning Dream sculpture is located, which we will visit. This soaring white sculpture is near the northern crossing point of the Milky Way meridian and the ecliptic of the landscape zodiac of Britain (England and Wales), which is the cusp of Gemini-Taurus in the celestial zodiac in the sky.
The Dream sculpture, created by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, is a white dolomite-coated pillar 66 feet (20 metres) tall, sited on an old spoil tip, now a hillock in a landscaped park that has replaced the defunct Sutton Manor Colliery. The Dream’s title is ‘Ex Terra Lucem’ (‘From the ground, light’), and symbolises a beam of light rising out of the dark coalmine below. It is cast with the neck, head and face of a young woman with her eyes closed in meditation, dreaming of a brighter future.
This weekend event will be honouring this idea, with its hope for a brighter future.
Number of attendees for this event is limited (max.15).
Cost (including ‘The Milky Way Shakespeare’ Zoom talk) = TBA
To book, please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
On acceptance of the booking, a link to the Zoom talk, ‘The Milky Way Shakespeare’, on 23 March 2025 will be sent to you. In addition, a recording of the talk (but not of the sharing afterwards) will be made available to you. (If your booking is made after 22 March 2025, only the recording will be available). This talk is essential for understanding the reason for this event and the other two events in this triple Shakespeare Mystery.
The displayed picture is a panoramic image of our Milky Way, by AstroAnthony. (Wikimedia Commons: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.)