Shakespeare's Globe: The fire of 1613

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Shakespeare's Globe mini-series, episode 239) is a short documentary about the day the Globe burned down. On 29 June 1613 the theatre was full of people watching a new play by Shakespeare about King Henry the Eighth. The actors fired a small cannon to welcome the king, a special effect with a loud bang and smoke but no cannonball, and something burning landed on the roof, which was made of thatch, a covering of dry plants. In less than an hour the whole wooden theatre burned to the ground. Nobody died, and a few days later Sir Henry Wotton wrote a letter about one man whose trousers caught fire and were put out with a bottle of ale, a kind of beer. The actors built the Globe again the next year, with a roof of tiles. The episode ends with a 1647 picture of London in which the artist swapped the names of two buildings.

It is a listening comprehension episode in the past simple: learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app, 8 on facts and 2 on vocabulary (thatch, special effect). The closing question (Why do you think the fire spread so fast?) opens a short class discussion about materials and fire safety.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three photos (the rebuilt Globe, a thatched roof, Hollar's 1647 view of London), key words and the 10 questions; a one-page pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key are also included. Learners should know the past simple. The script explains its new words as it goes (special effect, thatch, ale). The fire is told without any injury.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-languages-and-communication ("Langages") and c4-encountering-others ("Rencontres avec d'autres cultures"), Cycle 4. The episode targets CEFR level B1-.