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As I watched the First Word War ceremony on television last Monday night, gradually an image formed of twenty million ghosts watching with me (for that was roughly the number whose lives were stopped in the 1914 war) and of those same ghosts staring dumbly at the carnage in Gaza, in Syria and Iraq, and in the Ukraine.
The answer of course is make of it what you will – the horrors of war never go away, and never will. We who are so very fortunate at present not to dwell in a firing-line can only strive to make our politicians employ care and sense on our behalf, and contribute in whatever way we can to easing the lot of the victims.
Pondering these sober thoughts as London’s theatres pack with thousands of tourists, and my fellow creatives swarm to the great arts festivals (while my daughter and pals invade the soggy music festivals) I’ve chosen to spend these warm damp weeks quietly enjoying southern England. The sun and rain are swelling the fruits on the trees at Waterside – so never mind creating great works for the theatre, never mind teaching and nurturing the next generation of thespian talent, a priority this autumn will clearly be the steaming jam-pan…
A joyous present from my sister at my last birthday was membership of the National Trust, so I was delighted by the news today that the Trust has just bought one of those great, haunting sites from the unwritten past, the ancient fortified hill of Hambledon in Dorset, first settled (probably) by our forbears back in the New Stone Age, some five thousand years ago.
A trip westward beckons, but meanwhile the Trust offers plums to be picked nearer home. I’ve only ticked off a few of the London venues so far, so watch this space. Over at Hampstead there’s a fine eighteenth-century villa, reached via a handsome tree-lined driveway, giving a hint of the days when Hampstead, Highgate and Muswell were countryside hills overlooking the smokey spread of distant London.
Fenton House is a few minutes’ (albeit quite steep) walk from the tube station, and is well worth the trip. The house gives a great sense of eighteenth century living, is rich with cabinets of amazing porcelain, and walls decked with a stunning collection of pictures, many willed to the house by the late actor Peter Barkworth, who lived in Flask Walk, just over the way. I knew Peter quite well in his later years – over several decades he divided his time between acting in plays films and television dramas, and teaching at RADA. (He starred for many years in the record-breaking West End run of “Roar Like a Dove”, and would spend non-matinee days giving classes at Gower St.)
By the time I joined the Academy as Head of Acting Peter had long since retired, and was a revered member of the RADA Council. At tea-break in my first Council meeting Peter cornered me to share his opinion that the course involved “too much Alexander technique, and nobody knows how to stand!” Well, we listened, we kept the Alexander technique, but we tweaked, we shifted emphasis here and there – I think you’ll find the likes of Maxine Peak, Eve Best, Matthew MacFadyen, Tom Hiddleston and the rest of the amazing actors who came through the school in the next few years – all, at the very least, stand rather splendidly… 
Hilary Mantel’s wondrous Elizabethan chronicles of “Wolf Hall” and “Bring up the Bodies” have featured before in this blog, and in recent weeks I’ve been happily re-reading them. A cheering surprise came when I went to visit another NT London property, Sutton House in Hackney.
This Elizabethan town-house – still recognisably basically Tudor, despite later alterations – is mis-named. For years it was thought to have been the home of the founder of Charterhouse School, Thomas Sutton, but research showed Sutton lived not there but nearby, and that this house was in fact built by Rafe (or Ralph) Sadler, protege of Thomas Cromwell, Ms Mantel’s complex central character, who features often in the second book. Here is the kitchen where Cromwell almost certainly tasted Rafe’s cooks’ baking, here is the courtyard where he took the air, and the great chamber where King Henry’s troubled and troublesome love-life would be discussed.
As a neighbour of the UK’s Museum Of the year 2013, i.e. the William Morris Gallery, I am now committed to exploring the known haunts of the great Victorian artist/designer/socialist/businessman, and so with three chums went off last week to the Red House at Bexleyheath.
Morris was blessed with family money, and had the resources at the age of 25 to create – with his contemporary architect pal Philip Webb – a bespoke home for himself and his lovely new wife Jane, which would double as a base for his other creative buddies as they developed their arts and crafts, pre-Raphaelite projects. The day we went the sun shone fiercely, butterflies fluttered, we supped on cream teas amongst the hollyhocks in the garden, and reflected on what mix of heady ideals and earthy passions those privileged young Victorians brought to this quiet corner of Kent all those years ago. It’s a smashing place to visit – there are at least two more WM sites to be ticked off, in Hammersmith and Oxfordshire. Reports will be filed.
William Morris I’m sure would have had a soft spot for the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Confined to my bed this week by a temporary minor disorder, I’ve caught up on quite a lot of TV history, including Melvyn Bragg’s documentary on John Ball, the preacher-poet and intellectual driver of the revolution whose Kentish supporters would quite likely have passed by the site of the Red House on their way to challenging King Richard’s nobles in London. How concepts of status change, I remarked to my pal Robinson – a RADA graduate and former TV star who at the time was sprawled on my bathroom floor, having obligingly volunteered to replace the loo-seat – what would Messrs Ball and Tyler have made of their story being expounded for an audience of millions by a wealthy, socialist Peer of the Realm…..?
Theatre Festival Corner: for those of you who are feeling starved of theatre and have headed off to the festivals, in the links section below please check out the shows we’d love you to go and see, and to send us your comments.
EDINBURGH, both at the Pleasance Theatre:
“Connected – the Musical” by Craig Christie
https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/connected-musical#overview
“Civil Rogues” by Tim Norton
https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/civil-rogues#overview
AVIGNON
The Avignon Festival has just ended, but we heard great things about “The Diary of a Madman” and we understand there is now talk of it transferring to Paris – so readers by the Seine please note. You can catch a taster of it at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95IRyvckbOE
Other links:
Hambledon Hill: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-28674113
Fenton House: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/fenton-house/
Sutton House: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sutton-house/
The Red House: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/red-house/
William Morris gallery: http://www.wmgallery.org.uk
Essential cast members:
RAFE SADLER: http://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/sutton-house-home-of-ralph-sadler-late-of-wolf-hall/
JOHN BALL:
http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/czr8zm/melvyn-braggs-radical-lives–series-1—1-now-is-the-time—john-ball
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