Saturday, July 28, 2012

Stamford Shakespeare Company in Twelfth Night

Entertaining, easy to follow, and the twins were alike enough for suspension of disbelief to work. Usual magical setting, and good weather.  Excellent Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek, but why would Viola ever fall in love with a drippy duke Orsino - the character, not the actor!








Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Bridget Jones film 2

Rubbish basically.  Bridget came across as a very unlikely journalist, and the two men were cardboard.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Macbeth at Roundhouse - TV

Dark, dramatic (at first it seemed a bit much) but very gripping.

Monday, May 7, 2012

The King and the Playwright - TV

A BBC 4 TV series about how Shakespeare developed after 1603 and the death of Queen Elizabeth I.
His plays reflect the turbulence of the reign of James I, with the Gunpowder Plot, Enclosures of land, and James's need to legitimise his position as rightful king of England, united with Scotland.

Plays such as Measure for Measure (corruption and lawlessness) ,  Timon of Athens (money and greed), and King Lear (inheritance and divided kingdoms. Then the theme of 'equivocation' with Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, the commander who couldn't equivocate, and didn't win the love of his people.

Food for thought.

Finally the third episode - Legacy, includes The Winters Tale, The Tempest and Henry VIII, in collaboration with John Fletcher.  In parallel with James's concerns about the survival of his dynasty, the death of his very popular son, Prince Henry, after bathing in the Thames, and the marriage of his daughter Elisabeth to the King of Bohemia. She became known as the Winter Queen, after the couple were overthrown and exiled.

I has certainly helped me to see the plays in a wider context.

 

Eve Loiseau as Piaf

with Fiona Barrow on violin and Edward Jay on piano accordion. Arrangements by Edward Jay.

At Uppingham Theatre on Friday May 4th.

Well worth watching - she sang the songs with duende, and had the necessary stage presence. A lovely evening.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Shakespeare in Italy (TV)

Is this where Will spent those 'lost years'?
Shakespeare in Italy

Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, Othello.

Crollalanza - a Sicilian name!!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Merchant of Venice Film

from 1973, with Laurence Olivier as Shylock, Joan Plowright as Portia.  Raises the usual questions about anti-Semitism, context etc.  Always gripping.
A stronger than usual hint that Shylock has died with the last scene of Jessica holding a letter and in the background kaddish is sung.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Romeo and Juliet from Shakespeare's Globe on TV

Very well done. Lively acting, and the comic sections were excellent as gloom-breakers.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Another hodgepodge catch up

Watched on TV at the Globe - As You Like It, and Othello - both superb and in a theatre that seems ideal, so long as it doesn't rain.

Read China Miéville's The City and The City, 


 and Serpentine by Catherine Edmunds - a lot in there about the process of painting and the way the artist's mind works, all in a well-constructed plot that keeps you reading.


The usual promise of 'more later' - means I should put this awful rainy day to some constructive use!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Bridget Jones - film

Much funnier than I imagined. Entertaining feel-good movie.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Spirited Away

Animation from 2001 by Hayao Miyazaki

MOMA

Diego Rivera's murals and sketches,  Cindy Sherman and a general look around - Cézanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, and others.

Brooklyn Museum of Art

Wednesday 14 March

Judy Chicago's Dinner Table - from the 1970s,  some of Djuna Barnes' drawings and stories in NY newspapers from the early 20th century,   Rachel Kneebone's porcelain ceramic sculptures 'After Rodin', and the top floor American Art.    Along with 'Playing House' and some displays of earlier American houses.

Details later

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The Bostonians - film

Not enough depth - too simple - pretty pictures though, and good parts from Vanessa Redgrave as Olive Chancellor and Jessica Tandy as Miss Birdseye.  Christopher Reeve was not the most convincing.

May add more later.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Arm of Coincidence - by Bill James


I read this book because I met the author on one of my Northamptonshire walks.  I’m amazed at how ready people are to share their knowledge and achievements with strangers.  The main character clearly owes at least something to the author, who has worked in agriculture, and created some splendid metal sculptures in Southwick.
This is Henrietta (Moraes), muse and lover of Lucian Freud, and model for Francis Bacon.

 Two sculptures representing the development of agriculture.

Bill James told me he regrets having had the book published by what he later found to be a vanity publisher, and I think that with a little tighter editing in places, this could have found a niche.  I found it online, secondhand.

The tale takes place in Halston, an imaginary village near Southwick, and part of its charm for me was in following the main character along some of the paths in the area, recognizing landmarks and routes.  Other villages are named, and accurately placed and described.

Our hero, Jim Evans, is perhaps a bit too clever to be true.  Adept at photography, operating farm machinery, and driving HGVs, he is also a motorcycle stunt rider and a musician, with very liberal ideas about sex, and he soon makes himself indispensable to almost everyone in the village.
No story is complete without a good villain, and a love story, and as the title tells us, a few good coincidences.
I could have done without some of the technical details about farm machinery and tractors, but no doubt these would appeal to an enthusiast. 

Learning by heart

Well, I think I've got the Kipling one, and almost got the Frost On a Snowy Evening as well.  Internet intermittence issues have advantages.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Binging on poems

Those half-learned lines, the ones you nearly remember.

At the moment I've got four - Kipling's The Way through the Woods, Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and The Road not taken, and not quite on the same theme, but somehow close de la Mare's The Listeners

Now I'm going to learn the first one by heart. I hope.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Benjamin Grosvenor - piano recital

I don't claim to be knowledgeable about music, or piano in particular, but Benjamin Grosvenor can play and then some.

Two more films

Indecent Proposal - began well, but the character of the man who buys the young woman for a night came across as simply manipulative and not very nuanced - a superficial charmer, but cold. And the ending didn't convince.

When Harry met Sally - very funny in parts, and within the limitations of a rom-com, entertaining and almost endearing.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Talented Mr Ripley

Based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, which I read many years ago, and could barely remember the details - simply that Ripley turns out to be a rather unpleasant character.  The film's plot is here.

Tom Ripley is very well portrayed by Matt Damon, with Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf and Gwyneth Paltrow as his girlfriend, Marge.

Herebert Greenleaf, a New York shipping magnate pays Ripley to go to Europe to persuade his spoilt playboy son, Dickie to return to the US.   He insinuates himself into Dickie's life, and eventually, after a row in a boat, he kills Dickie and dumps the body overboard - we're not quite sure whether it's premeditated murder.  He then assumes Dickie's identity and the rest of the film consists of the way he deceives others, and ends up with some of Dickie's inheritance, but looking forward to a life of loneliness and deception.

Friday, January 20, 2012

God Collar - Marcus Brigstocke

An entertaining and thoughtful examination of why Marcus Brigstocke is a reluctant atheist - covering such topics as how the world's great religions - the Abrahamic ones - despise women, abuse power, and are generally not very nice, yet at the same time many people find comfort, comradeship and happiness within them.

Along the way we learn quite a lot about Marcus himself.  An excellent read.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Ghost - Robert Harris

Another page-turner from Harris - it's the 'Blair' autobiography one.   Makes you wonder how close it gets to the truth - of course Adam Lang ends up assassinated, but . . .

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Revolutionary Road

Di Caprio is a better actor than I gave him credit for.  Film recording the break-down of a marriage and the loss of illusions/delusions. In spite of the general increasing desperation there are also some very funny episodes.

Joanne Harris - The Blue-eyed Boy

Dark parody of the goings on on an online writing site, plus a look into dysfunctional families and parent-child relationships.

The usual brilliant writing, word-play, sensual descriptions and the like.