If they didn’t like the play, the audience threw them at the actors! This is where our idea of throwing tomatoes comes from – but ‘love-apples’, as they were known, come from South America and they weren’t a common food at the time.

Some of the audience went to the theatre to be seen and admired, dressed in their best clothes. But these people were not necessarily well behaved. Most didn’t sit and watch in silence like today. They clapped the heroes and booed the villains, and cheered the special effects.

The groundlings paid a penny to stand in “The Pit”, also called “The Yard”, just below the stage and watch the play. Standing in the pit was uncomfortable, and most times people were packed like sardines, keeping each other standing. Also, they were exposed to the elements, as the theatre itself was not covered.

The Burbages originally had a 20-year lease of the site on which the Theatre was built. Like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritans in 1642. It was destroyed in 1644 to make room for tenements.

After the fire destroyed the Globe, it was rebuilt with a tiled roof to prevent a similar disaster. However, theatres were gradually closed down in the subsequent years, with the Globe itself closed in 1644 to make way for residential buildings.

The theatre was located in Southwark, across the River Thames from the City of London. Shakespeare’s company built the Globe only because it could not use the special roofed facility, Blackfriars Theatre, that James Burbage (the father of their leading actor, Richard Burbage) had built in 1596 for it inside the city.