Each of the Bard's 38 works will be performed in a different language at the Globe Theatre over a six-week period starting on the playwright's birthday – April 23.

New and established international theatre companies will perform the plays and, according to the theatre, it marks the first time all of Shakespeare's plays will be staged in a single season.

Among the delights being planned are a Cantonese version of Titus Andronicus, The Two Gentlemen of Verona in Shona and The Taming of the Shrew in Urdu.

British Sign Language will also be featured along with Maori, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and Greek.

"Shakespeare, as well as a great playwright, has become an international language, and has proved one of the most life-affirming and barrier-transcending ways that people can speak to one another," said Globe Theatre artistic director Dominic Dromgoole.

"His plays have been translated into every major living language and there is a long tradition of Shakespeare performances around the world in people's own vernacular."

The Globe Theatre, which opened in 1997 as a re-creation of the open-air theatre where many of Shakespeare's plays were first performed, has also announced plans to build an additional indoor Jacobean theatre.

Seating around 320, the design will be based on that of the small 17th-century Blackfriars Theatre where the Bard's King's Men acting company performed.


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