A Shakespeare trail at the 2016 Festival

King’s Lynn Festival has a special reason to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death for the Bard almost certainly performed on the stage of St George’s Guildhall in King Street.

This year's Festival includes a Shakespeare's Lynn guided walk, a Shakespeare Sculptures exhibition, a showing of the 2015 film Macbeth and the King's Lynn Festival Chorus will perform Three Shakespeare Songs by Vaughan Williams.

Music

On July 19 at 7.30pm in St Nicholas’ Chapel King’s Lynn Festival Chorus will perform Three Shakespeare Songs composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. In a recital at the Minster church at 9.30pm on July 23 David Wright (harpsichord) will play Tudor and Elizabethan music such as that which would be known by Shakespeare.

Exhibition

A Festival exhibition will show a series of Shakespeare Sculptures by Norfolk artist Susan Bacon who was inspired by some of the Bard’s most memorable creations.

The sculptures and small maquettes – described as “social calligraphy” – were displayed at the Globe Theatre last autumn as part of The Globe Project. They will be on show in the foyer of the Fermoy Gallery at King Street on July 18-30 (closed on Sundays) from 10am-4pm.

Walk

Lynn historian Dr Paul Richards will lead a Festival walk, In Search of Shakespeare’s Lynn, on July 22 at 2pm. It will include a visit to St George’s Guildhall where, 

The largest surviving Medieval guildhall in England, St. George's Guildhall was saved from demolition in the 1940s and to celebrate its restoration in 1951, Ruth Lady Fermoy arranged a week-long festival of music and the arts which was a huge success - the first King’s Lynn Festival.

Film

On Saturday 23 July at 11am at St George's Guildhall, the King's Lynn Community Cinema Club will show the 2015 film Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.