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.

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!!

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.

Romeo and Juliet from Shakespeare's Globe on TV

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

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!

Bridget Jones - film

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

Sam Bourne - Pantheon

details later