Barbican Announces Full Line-up for SHAKESPEARE WEEKENDER: PLAY ON

Next month, the Barbican devotes a whole weekend to 400th anniversary celebrations of the Bard. The centre's spaces will be filled with interactive workshops, talks, installations and performances, drawn from the worlds of theatre, dances, art and music across the UK. Artists will be giving their modern responses to Shakespeare's work, offering audiences a range of surprising and offbeat events.

Highlights of the BARBICAN SHAKESPEARE WEEKENDER: PLAY ON, which takes place on March 5-6, include: Much Ado About Bingo with Boogaloo Stu; Show the Love: Karaoke Glitter Rave with the Crafternoon Tea Club in a pop-up karaoke club; flashmob dance classes with MoveMe Dance; and the opportunity to touch, hold and get up close to history with the Museum of London's object handling sessions, including real Elizabethan artefacts such as shoes, candlesticks, cooking pots and coins.

You can also join actor Christopher Green in his dressing room as he prepares to go on stage; become a wandering poet with Desperately Seeking Shakespeare or track down vagabonds with Burn the Curtain, a hunt between the Barbican and Museum of London; see pop-up performances by theatre company Told by an Idiot; enjoy poetic responses to Shakespearean sonnets from King's College London; or watch IROKO's African dance interpretation of Macbeth's witches.

There are plenty of workshops aimed at families, such as badge-making with Codasign, T-shirt workshops with artist Reza Ben Gajra, adding insults to the Shakespeare Insult Wall, and creating a micro-film using live-action, stop-motion animation and puppets with The Craftimation Factory.

Other activities include: exclusive access to the Royal Shakespeare Company's backstage, where you can see how blood and gore is created, learn stage fighting and try on costumes; a mobile hairdressing trailer where you can have your hair styled as a Shakespearean character; a tattoo stand offering an array of verse, sonnets and characters; a talk by Howard Jacbson about his new book Shylock is My Name; and, on Saturday evening, Son et Lumière, a collaboration between Guildhall Library and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in which the Guildhall's façade is transformed by colourful 3D-mapping, accompanied by music.

While most activities are free, there are a few ticketed events. These include: Hydrocracker's Shakespeare à la Carte, a theatre and dining experience in the Bonfire restaurant; Forced Entertainment's Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare in The Pit; and on Sunday, Clara Sanabras's song cycle inspired by The Tempest, performed by Sanabras, Chorus of Dissent, Vox Holloway and Britten Sinfonia.

To book tickets, call the box office on 0845 120 7511 or visit the Barbican website.

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