The program will draw together two momentous anniversaries: the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and the centenary of the First World War. Entitled Arms and the Man, the season will include new productions of Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, Julius Caesar (the latter directed by artistic director Dominic Dromgoole), The Comedy of Errors (directed by Blanche McIntyre) and a revisiting of director Lucy Bailey's production of Titus Andronicus, first seen in 2006.

The first venues for the worldwide Hamlet tour have also been announced; the production plans to visit every single country on earth, including Wittenberg, the ancient theatres of Heraclea and Philippopolis, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington and the Mayan ruins of Copán in Honduras.

The four new plays are by Howard Brenton, David Eldridge, Richard Bean and Simon Armitage.

Brenton's Dr. Scroggy’s War follows 19-year-old Jack Twigg on his journey to the trenches of the First World War and back, and explores his relationship with pioneering medic Harold Gillies, the founding father of plastic surgery. It reunites the playwright with director John Dove, who previously collaborated on Anne Boleyn at the Globe.

Eldridge’s Holy Warriors is a kaleidoscopic tale of holy war and bloody revenge in the struggle for Jerusalem, taking in over two millennia of conflict. It will be directed by James Dacre, currently artistic director at Northampton's Royal and Derngate. Bean's Pitcairn, co-produced with Out of Joint and Chichester Festival Theatre, is a brutal telling of the colonization of the remote island of Pitcairn by Fletcher Christian and the Bounty mutineers. Out of Joint artistic director Max Stafford-Clark directs the play that charts the spiraling descent of the colony from a new Eden of freedom and equality to a brutal dystopia.

Armitage’s The Last Days of Troy (which will premiere first at Manchester's Royal Exchange before transferring to London) dramatizes and completes the narrative of Homer’s Iliad, bringing the siege of Troy to its bloody conclusion. It is – in the playwright’s own words – “a back-room story of wounded pride, and the push and pull of family ties and national loyalty.” It will be directed by Nick Bagnall.

To book tickets, contact the box office on 020 7401 9919, or visit www.shakespearesglobe.com.