Excavations of the site of London’s first theatre, where the plays of William Shakespeare were performed, has been excavated, revealing a section of outerwall and floor surface.

Archaeologists who have been digging here since 2008 have uncovered a section of outer wall and floor surface from the building, completed in 1576 and known simply as The Theatre — whose timbers were later used to build The Globe theater.

Now a London drama troupe plans to erect a new building on the site, bringing live performances back to the spot where Elizabethan drama flourished more than 400 years ago.

This week actor Paul McGann stood amid the dirt and bricks and recited the prologue to “Romeo and Juliet” — a play historians believe had its premiere on this site and in which Shakespeare may have taken a small acting role.

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The famous Globe theatre is set to stage it’s first production of Henry VIII since the original theatre burnt down during a performance of the play in 1613.

A cannon fired from the attic as a special effect on June 29 1613 was meant to hit the Thames, but struck the Globe’s thatched roof and destroyed the whole playhouse.

The theatre was rebuilt just one year later, but the Globe’s artistic director Dominic Dromgoole will be hoping for better luck when the new production opens in May.

Mr Dromgoole said: ”Normally I would think that Henry VIII would be box office poison but we seem to be living in a period of Tudor gold dust at the moment. There is something strange and magical about that time for us at the moment.”

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To those who believe William Shakespeare did author his plays, Fulke Greville has always been a top choice for who truly did. It was rumoured that all the original manuscripts were buried with him. Now an endoscope will be used to probe the tomb and determine if this is true. Exciting!

A prominent 17th-century nobleman, Greville was a renowned scholar, soldier, statesman and spy.

Like his dearest friend Sir Philip Sidney, he was also an accomplished author.

So talented, indeed, that some believe he was the true author of several of Shakespeare’s works.

For years this has been little more than conjecture; fuel for the lively and often hostile debate between Anti-Stratfordians – those who deny that an ill- educated grain merchant and actor such as William Shakespeare could possibly have produced such a stunning oeuvre – and outraged traditionalists.

Now, however, the tantalising prospect of a definitive answer has been raised. More intriguingly still, the explanation, hidden in a series of clues scattered throughout his work and on the Warwick monument, is said to come from Fulke Greville himself.

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Yet another scholar is claiming that William Shakespeare’s plays were not written by the bard himself, but by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

He claims de Vere’s known works and letters show a strong Shakespearean style and also points to the earl’s nickname at court, ‘Spear-shaker’.

Mr Kreiler says the earl graduated from Cambridge aged just 14; mastered law and Italian; and would have had a wide-ranging knowledge of the upper classes – in contrast to the lowly-born William Shakespeare. All this, he concludes, means de Vere was well placed to write works such as The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar.

Mr Kreiler also believes Hamlet was almost an autobiographical play about the Earl’s life. De Vere’s father-in-law, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, is said to be have been parodied as the character Polonius.

“Edward De Vere also lived in the same area as Shakespeare and scrutiny of specific stanzas of poetry he wrote show their style was not copied anywhere else at the time, except in what we call Shakespearean poems.”

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An expert is claiming to have proven that William Shakespeare wrote an unattributed play about Edward III by using computer software designed to detect plagarism.

Sir Brian Vickers, of the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, compared phrases used in The Reign of King Edward III, published anonymously in 1596, with early works by Shakespeare and is now convinced the work was a collaboration with Thomas Kyd, a popular playwright at the time.

Using software called Pl@giarism, which was developed to catch student cheats, he searched for ‘linguistic fingerprints’ – repeated phrases of three words or more – in plays from the period.

Sir Brian said in plays by different authors ten to 20 matches might be expected, but he found about 200 matches when comparing Edward III with Shakespeare’s early works.