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And yet again many of you have been plagued with e-mails purporting to be from me in distress in the Philippines! I have indeed been travelling, but to the quiet waterways of Middle England, nowhere near the Philippines. Thanks again for all your concern. I have two messages: BEWARE USING YAHOO E-MAIL, and if you find you’ve been hacked, beware web-sites purporting to fix you with additional “network security”. Clearly the £250 I spent with the company that comes up when you google “Yahoo email tech support” was a waste of money. (If you look at the small print it it’s not actually anything to do with Yahoo, but a company called Albion.) I shall be migrating to g-mail for my “everyday” messaging within the next few days, and will circulate the new address.
Meanwhile, I can always be contacted via the website, ellis@teachyourselfacting.com
To return to the glorious sun-splashed summer weeks of 2013, bliss was it to wander the Lee Valley marshes, the camera a-dangle round the neck, clicking away as a student of the Photographic Society‘s summer course – lots of fun, lots of soothing images…
As temperatures fall and we ease into autumn, so for our transatlantic chums begins the Fall, and with the new semester comes a fresh crop of American students, eager to sample our city’s theatrical wares. To me falls the task of being their guide, on behalf of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts studies abroad programme.
So far the students have seen three London shows. Two Bards and a Muddle. Our first outing was to the Lyttelton Theatre at the National.
However shortly after that we went to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside, and the New Yorkers ADORED it! Such a relief, after the furrowed brows and general air of disappointment two evenings before a few hundred yards upstream. The theatre’s Director Dominic Dromgoole really has got the measure of that tricky al fresco space. Praise be, from the start we knew this was a play of its time, a play written in the Renaissance, with all its ground-breaking energy built into the text! Why on earth do directors still feel the need to impose contemporary concepts on period masterpieces? See below. This is cracking stuff – spare no scruple in getting a ticket for one of the few remaining performances. There’s wondrous work from all the cast, with a sexy, dirty Titania from our Michelle Terry Brown, a bewildered Wall from Tommy Laurence, and Christopher Logan dazzlingly funny as Flute/Thisbe. I’ve been to two other Shakespeare plays these last couple of weeks – with the American students to “Othello” at the National, and with my family to the RSC “Hamlet” at Stratford on Avon. Both were “modern dress” productions. OK, there’s nothing new in that – it’s hardly a revolutionary idea, it’s been pretty common practice since the 1920s – but sometimes it really does raise all kinds of questions, which if you’ve a tiresomely literal mind like mine, can distract seriously from one’s focus on the plot and themes. Let me say straight off that the performances in the “Othello” deserve the good reception they’ve had from the critics. Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear are superb actors on the top of their form.
And yet – if only the director had had the bottle to let these great talents loose in a truly challenging setting – like for instance by setting the show in a restless Mediterranean republic during the turbulent 17th century – and embracing a style of performance suggested by the magnificently high-flown language Shakespeare provides! The sound of military helicopters (which I first heard in a Mike Bogdanov Shakespeare production back in the 70s) and the sight of Othello and his troops in modern combat-gear immediately invite us to imagine they are modern soldiers with contemporary fighting equipment. Sorry, but in that case, where are the two-way radios? How come the shouted-out news that the Turkish fleet has sunk hasn’t already arrived via sattelite? Stylistically, the last scene of wounding, killings and mayhem – the prelude to Othello’s last great speech – for me came quite near to bathos, set as it was in a services’ married-quarters bedroom, complete with double divan and Ikea-style wardrobe. With lesser actors this could have been really quite silly…..
I was less distracted by David Farr’s setting the RSC “Hamlet” in what looked like a faded church hall, though still puzzled by the logic behind it. It indicated, I guess, that this was the venue for the Elsinore fencing-club, which then allowed swords to be readily at hand, and a striking image for the Ghost to appear in full white fencing kit and mask. But such was the alacrity and imagination with which the text was mined and delivered by the cast, Shakespeare was allowed to tell his story, and it was quite, quite engrossing.
Jonathan Slinger was at RADA during my early years in charge of the training, and he’s a remarkable quirky actor – and Hamlet is a remarkable, quirky character. Go figure – he’s terrific. There’s smashing work on display, of the sort we have every right to expect at the RSC, after all, but hey – to witness Greg Hicks creating a fine double of the bleak ghost of the dead king and his sinuous, plausible brother, and to admire his total command of the verse in both roles, is a joy.
Similarly, there’s a lucid and moving performance from Cliff Burnett as the Player King, and a stunning Ophelia from Pippa Nixon. Look out – make no mistake, here’s a rising star…..
My arrival in Stratford on Monday was grand and stately – on a barge, much like Cleopatra.
Veteran readers of this blog may recall that in the summer of 2012 I served behind the mast of a canal-boat (OK it didn’t have a mast, but it’s a nice nautical metaphor) and slaved away at lock-gates on the Grand Union, while my pal Robin steered. Last week I returned to the waterways, but in vastly different circumstances. This time as a guest of my sister, who celebrated her 80th birthday by booking family members aboard a luxurious floating canalboat hotel. It’s a wondrously refreshing and soothing way to unwind. We cruised elegantly from Warwick to Stratford, with all locks, and all our needs, attended to by our captain John and his three-person crew, including Hannah – a supremely-gifted cook. They sail under the banner of Bywater Holidays – much, much to be recommended.
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