ABSTRACT
The third largest country in the European Com munity with a population of 57.6 million in 1991, the United Kingdom is composed of four national regions - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - with a land area of 244,000 square kilometres (94,200 square miles). Of the four, England is the largest both in geographical size and in population. London has been the administrative capital of England for nearly 1,000 years, and of the whole United Kingdom since 1801; it has been the UK’s main theatrical centre since the days of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The first buildings constructed to house theatre Companies were erected in Shakespeare’s time. None has sur vived, although in 1991 the foundations of the Rose Theatre (built in 1587), where Shakespeare’s Henry VI and Titus Andronicus were first performed, were discovered by chance during excavations on a building site on London’s South Bank.
