Summer – and Shakespeare’s coming home!

As our country’s briefly scorching summer shows once again it has too short a date, amongst London theatres news is breaking – Will Shakespeare is returning to Drury Lane!

Here is a picture I took but a few days since, of the newly-refurbished “Temple to Shakespeare” built beside the Thames at Hampton some two hundred and seventy years ago by David Garrick, then the great Shakespearian star and actor-manager of the Drury Lane Theatre.

This week comes an announcement that at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane – an address where over the centuries the likes of Garrick, Sarah Sissons and Edmund Kean thrilled thousands – the Jamie Lloyd Company will offer in 2025 a season of Shakespeare plays to feature not only Tom Hiddleston and Haley Atwell in “Much Ado about Nothing” – but also the Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver in “The Tempest”

Also next year the Bridge Theatre by Tower Bridge will stage “Richard the Second” with “Bridgerton” actor Jonathan Bailey. Mixing star performers and Shakespeare’s word wizardry in big, entirely “commercial” venues was once central to London’s theatre scene, a world of late so dominated by musicals.

Not that there’s anything wrong with musicals – the Bridge itself lightened the landscape recently with a sparkling “Guys and Dolls’ where it was a joy to watch our Radagrad Danny Mays strut his stuff, while upstream at Drury Lane another Gower St ex-student Craig Gallivan gathered richly comic garlands in the hit show “Frozen”.

It’s just that it’s exciting and refreshing to see the balance shift a little. Tom Hiddleston – alongside his glittering career in TV with dramas like “The Night Manager” and in blockbuster “Marvel” movies – has returned before to his classical roots – a Coriolanus at the Donmar, a return to RADA for Hamlet at the Vanbrugh – but Benedick on this great stage should be really special.

But oh, how much will be the tickets….???

I found myself wondering who was the last prominent actor to perform in Shakespeare at Drury Lane? There’s a nice quote on Wikipedia: reporting Victorian days when a “period of general decline culminated with F.B Chatterton’s 1878 resignation; in his words, “Shakespeare spells ruin, and Byron bankruptcy.” During that fateful season Chatterton produced “Macbeth”, “Othello”, “Cymbeline”, and “Hamlet” – each with a run of just a few nights.

But I could find no mention of who were the actors who contributed to that manager’s jaundiced view, nor of any who may later have defied it on the Drury Lane stage – UNTIL I consulted that fine actor and elegant source of all things theatrical historical, Frank Barrie! Frank himself (see link below) has of course played many a leading Shakespearian rôle in venues across the globe – and he tells me that the last great Shakespeare performance at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane was in 1957, given by Sir John Gielgud in Peter Brook’s production of “The Tempest” – playing of course, Prospero, the very rôle to be tackled by Sigourney Weaver!

It’s intriguing that Sigourney Weaver will follow not only the late Sir John in the part, but also echo Dame Helen Mirren in re-creating a character who is, essentially, a great magician – a rôle apt for either gender.

The bar for great female Shakespeare Drury Lane performances was set over two centuries ago by an indefatigable Welshwoman, Sarah Siddons. Her version of Lady Macbeth became a London theatre legend. William Hazlitt noted: “…it seemed almost as if a being of a superior order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world…. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast… she glided on and off the stage like an apparition.”. So no pressure Sigourney! Did you know that Sarah Siddons has an impressive statue near Paddington?

And talking of major female performers, I was hugely privileged last week to be a guest at the Albert Hall, for the BBC’s First Night of the Proms. The concert was conducted by Elim Chan- a woman of remarkable presence and command, steering the mighty combination of the BBC Symphony Orchestra plus the BBC Singers – in Handel and Bruckner, then joined by the truly extraordinary piano soloist Isata Kanneh Mason in Clara Schumann’s Concerto in A. This last created by the composer at the age of 14! It was a fabulous evening – and can still be enjoyed on the iPlayer (link below). Listen for Isata’s encore – Gershwin’s “The Man I Love”, in which she taps into moments of pure emotion bringing tears to many an eye, including both mine!

(Photo: Thoroughly Good Classical Music)

If you’re a Kanneh Mason fan there is a special “relaxed” Morning Prom at the Albert Hall this Monday, August 5th. The brothers Sheku and Braimah will join with the brilliant Brazilian guitarist Plinio Fernandez in a lively programme of Songs and Dances – Scarborough Fair to Brahms Hungarian Dances, with the Fantasia Orchestra – which is a terrific programme, and could be a great summer musical outing for children. (Link below – if however you read this after Sunday evening/early Monday morning, there is also a link to other music treats coming soon).

Last month I wandered off to visit dear friends in France, and to explore territory where some of my family have now gone to live – the heart of the Périgord, a village called Saint Léon sur Vézère. Tom, Marie and six year old Célestine have moved into an old, old homestead on the side of a steep limestone hillside, amongst hills riddled with caves occupied since neolithic times. At the base of their hill they have a kitchen garden, where they find stone-age flint arrow-heads, and the occasional roman coin. Exploring the nearby cave system I came across this remarkable cavern, which is known ominously as “La Grotte de Jugement”… If you look carefully at the top right of the entrance you will see a bull’s head, carved it seems in Roman times. There are various explanations as to why the cave is like it is – are those curious pigeon-holes literally meant for carrier pigeons – or did they have other long-lost purposes….?

And while we’re on long-lost purposes, we are due another short “blogoire” episode. The last post you found me a mewling child in a push-chair by the sea at Southsea – this you will find me a scuff-kneed kid in Cardiff, the years immediately after the war. Much of that city centre featured burned-out bomb sites following prolonged Nazi air-raids on the docks, the valleys nearby dominated by blue-grey, man-made hills of coal-slurry from the mines, the notorious “slag-heaps”, fore-shadowing later tragedies.

I remember exploring a bomb-site brightened by a great clump of dog-daisies, amongst the streets of Splott – a part of town where a young local was beginning to be noticed for her mighty singing voice, a lass called Shirley Bassey. Years later in 2004 I watched her perform, still gorgeously glamorous, patting kindly the snowy heads of gentlemen fans, gazing adoringly from the front row during the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary Two. So what was I doing on board the QM2’s maiden voyage?

Suffice to say later issue of the blogoire will have a nautical flavour – for now let’s go back to days when people in Britain lived in real fear of bombs, falling onto their homes out of the sky.

This has been the blog for the summer of 24, so far. Watch this space – the Summer Blogoire Supplement will be along shortly.

LINKS:

FRANK BARRIE:

https://teachyourselfacting.com/frank-barry/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank Barrie

FIRST NIGHT OF THE PROMS on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00216m5/bbc-proms-2024-first-night-of-the-proms

PROM 22 – SONGS AND DANCES: https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-22/

and/or check out forthcoming Kanneh Mason events at

http://www.kannehmasons.com/live/