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Globe Player brings Shakespeare on-demand action to thy livinge roome

Is this a dagger I see before me? No my thane, t’is Globe Player, an on-demand service that’s serving up more than 50 Shakespeare productions. 

The new service that’s launched today by Shakespeare’s Globe will let theatre fans buy rent or buy filmed adaptations of Shakespeare plays including Twelfth Night and Romeo & Juliet as well as Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus

Performances filmed in 2013, including The Tempest with Colin Morgan and Roger Allam, Dominic Dromgoole’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Eve Best’s directorial debut of (whisper it) Macbeth will be made available on the Globe Player in the coming months. 

Some of the hottest content from Shakespeare's Globe is available to watch on the Globe Player
Bored of on-demand: Try Globe Player’s per per view board-treading service

Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, said: “The Globe is always looking for bold new ways to take Shakespeare out into the world and share his astonishing plays with as many people as possible. 

“Globe Player will allow us to reach brand new audiences and to make access to our productions simple and seamless for anyone with the internet. We are delighted to be the first theatre with its own dedicated video-on-demand platform.” 

The content isn’t just reserved for Shakespeare adaptations either. A number of short films produced by the New York Shakespeare Exchange’s Sonnet Project and A Summer Hamlet feature length documentary are also available to watch on the Globe Player. 

Prices for performances start at £3.99 to rent and £7.99 to buy. Viewers can stream, download watch content on a range of devices and from Apple TV to Android phones and tablets, although downloads are currently not supported on iOS devices.  

Globe Player files are 3GB in size on average and can be played on VLC Player. Shakespeare’s Globe says that you can stream Globe Player content through all major browsers, but recommends that viewers stream online through Chrome. 

While you can access Globe Player on iOS and Android phones, Shakespeare’s Globe reveals it’s working on an app that would be subscribers remotely access and stream, a library of previously purchased titles.  

Globe Player is the latest highbrow on-demand service to launch in the UK. If the latest Hollywood blockbusters and hit TV shows about advertisers, dragons and frosty Scandinavian cops aren’t your thing then the BFI Player offers a range of free and paid content from the British Film Institute’s archive including 1924’s film Epic of Everest and the newly launched The Selfish Giant

Curzon Home Cinema also lets customers watch independent films that are currently showing, such as Human Capital, Jimi: All Is By My Side and Ida, the idea being, like Globe Player, if you can’t make it along to one of Curzon’s theatres, the action can come to you via a broadband connection. 

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