The Isango Ensemble from Cape Town, South Africa, kicked off the Globe to Globe Festival with a glorious interpretation of Shakespeare's epic poem that left the audience grinning from sheer exhilaration. The compelling story of desire, power, attempted seduction and loss unfolds through a seamless medley of song, dance and music, drawing on elements from Western operatic traditions, South African a cappella and contemporary pop music. This was Shakespeare with marimbas, drums, beatboxing, hand-clapping, whistles and improvised instruments I can't even name. An all-black cast on the Globe stage in a multilingual production incorporating six of the nine major South African languages, including IsiZulu, IsiXhose, SeSotho, Setswana, English and a sprinkling of Afrikaans: this was Shakespeare like never before.

As I stood in the yard, waiting for the performance to start and watching the all-black cast kitted out in their quasi-Elizabethan but also somehow unmistakably South African costumes, I did find myself wondering about the project. Shakespeare performed in thirty-eight languages? A pernicious example of the continuing success of Western cultural colonization? Or an eloquent testimony to the ways that shared human values successfully cross the cultural divide? A lot rides on the idea of a global Shakespeare festival.