Imbued with a spirit of magic and the supernatural, The Tempest is Shakespeare’s late great masterpiece of forgiveness, generosity and enlightenment.

The Globe is an amazing little theatre. Open air full of atmosphere and beautiful inside. It was the first time I had visited the Globe and I loved every second of it. Again we were graced with good weather and standing near the front row was fantastic. You really felt you were part of the play.

Stage door

My friend and I had seen the play a few weeks back and had gone to the stage door to find ourselves at the back of lots of fans and not even get a glance of Colin so we decided to go to the stage door only this time. We turned up an hour and a half before the performance ended and sat by the steps in front of the stage door gates. We were the first fans there. We saw Billy Boyd (Lord of the Rings) come in and out and then in again to the theatre.

About 45 mins before the play ended fans started turning up including two female fans with 2 gorgeous black dogs called Merlin and Arthur. Eventually as the play ended everyone rushed to the stage door. At one point I thought Colin was not going to come out because the security were asking us to move back onto the road and of course no one was moving this went on for a while but suddenly I saw him walking towards us with a couple of people.

He came out of the gates and greeted me first. He said hello to me but and started to sign my Colin artwork (attached). Seriously my heart stopped (not for the first time) and in my panic I totally forgot to say anything to him.

Luckily an opportunity came a short while later when he also signed a Tempest postcard for me. I was standing right next to him. I said to Colin ‘thanks for such a wonderful show Colin, it was really great to see you on the stage’ and he looked straight into my eyes and said ‘so thank you so much I really glad you enjoyed it’. Again my heart went *THUD* He was really very sweet and patient with everyone. You can see by pretty much all the photos that have been posted since he started the play how happy seems to be to meet fans. Always smiling. Between us my friend and I took 133 photos of Colin close up and there isn’t one where he isn’t smiling.

I loved the fact that Colin asked the people at the front (including me) that had stuff signed to kindly move aside to let those further back to the front to see him which I thought was sweet although it was impossible at one point to move atall let alone out of the group of fans we were to squashed together.

I was lucky that it was a really lovely day and the weather was perfect.