I snuck away from London over the past two days on a kind of avant-garde Shakespeare mini-break. Last night I was in Stratford to see Troilus and Cressida, a co-pro between the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Wooster Group. Today I drove to Cardiff to see the first performance of Coriolan/us, a National Theatre Wales adaptation after Shakespeare and Brecht staged in a very big aircraft hanger at RAF St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. Neither production is on for long – Troilus is in Stratford until 18 August, then 23 August to 8 September in London, and there are only six more dates for Coriolan/us before 18 August – but both are essential for anyone interested in contemporary theatre, and in the ever more intimate connections of live performance and media. I’m not sure I’ve yet made sense of either production for myself, but undaunted I thought I’d offer some first notes. read more »
Seven days later. A week on from Danny Boyle’s Olympics opening ceremony, and the great writing about that extraordinary vision keeps on coming. So I cannot resist offering links to a third group of ten views. Across the jump you will find political analysis, textual exploration and some fun – what more can you ask of a blog (or indeed an Olympics opening ceremony)? (Warning: contains link to toxic Richard Littlejohn.)
Time, most definitely, to return to The Space, the Arts Council England/BBC digital ‘pop-up’ that, in its present form at least, will be with us for only another three months. Indeed, this is exactly the half-way point for the announced project, although it is almost certain to continue in some form. In the Arts Council’s recently published document ‘Creative media policy’ (link: download), £8 million is set aside for funding the future phase of the project. In the now unlikely event that it disappears entirely – and heaven forfend – we most definitely won’t know what we’ve got ’til it’s gone. Some licences and rights deals, however, will expire at the end of October. So we need now to cherish the riches and celebrate the achievements of The Space. But I think we also need to offer some tough love in the form of rather more critical scrutiny than I sense it is receiving. read more »
The terrific filmmaker, our friend and occasional collaborator Paul Tickell contributed this wonderful response to Danny Boyle’s Olympics opening ceremony as a ‘Comment’ to one of our posts over the weekend. But it deserves a far wider readership than that, and so as a first step towards that I am posting it here. Do please read…
Paul Tickell writes: Successful as he is I’ve never been entirely convinced by Danny Boyle as a film-maker. But what a show this was! So much to talk about, but first of all I’d like to home in on Blake and ‘Jerusalem’: thankfully it was a de-militarised zone. Often the poem ends up being used as a lugubrious marching song, a battle hymn vocalised by imperial triumphalists (enter stage right cheerleaders like the Michael Goves, the Niall Fergusons et al using the Churchillian tone to turn Blake the great Republican and political ‘terrorist’ into a sub-Kipling apologist of Empire, of the Dunkirk spirit and of just about anything else ‘British’ amenable to a reactionary agenda). read more »
My post yesterday picking out ten great online pieces about the Olympics opening ceremony was this blog’s most popular post for months and months. In part as a consequence of the remarkable interest that prompted, and also because I remain totally fascinated by the event and the reactions it has provoked (can someone organise a conference about it, and quickly, please?), here is another bunch of pieces with further analysis. (Incidentally, did you see that the BBC are going to re-run the whole thing on the afternoon of 18 August?) First off, however, something that is totally great, courtesy of Reuters Photography Blog – a time-lapse of shots by photographer Pawel Kopcyznski that encapsulates the whole ceremony in just over a minute – it’s astonishing how all-embracing and evocative it already feels.
If nothing else, we will be thinking and talking about the Olympics opening ceremony for many a moon. The detailed cultural analyses will follow in the weeks and months to come, but it’s worth stressing that it was a lot of fun and totally fascinating, and that it was truly spectacular at times, and silly, bonkers and extraordinarily bold. Bravo, Danny Boyle, bravo. Here are the ten best things about it that I’ve found online so far – including (at no. 10) the final paragraph of the director’s programme note last night – if you have tears, prepare to shed them now. read more »
Wednesday evening, and the digits on my mobile show that it is a little before midnight. After hours of relentless rain, this is a moment of respite. The wind has dropped too, and the sea is calm tonight. Editor Todd Macdonald and I set off to walk back across the coastal fields to the Northumberland village of Craster. Behind us looms the ruin of Dunstanburgh Castle, in front is a sloping field of illuminated bell tents. In the air is the murmur of a soundscape combining the undulating sounds of composer Mel Mercier with some of the most beautiful love poetry in English – and in Welsh. Welcome to one of the eight locations of Peace Camp, an celebratory installation created by Deborah Warner in collaboration with Fiona Shaw, and realised by event producers extraordinaire Artichoke. I am wet and I am cold and I am tired but I am most definitely contented. read more »
Grrrr! I know, I know that you should never respond to criticism, but today I can’t resist a little rant. I am also by disposition a retiring individual not much given to trumpeting Illuminations’ achievements. But take a look at the following from Peter Stanford’s admiring interview with Sir Richard Eyre in today’s Daily Telegraph, ‘The BBC “wasn’t taking Shakespeare seriously”. Sir Richard has directed Henry IV part 1 and 2 for The Hollow Crown, the second of which is broadcast tonight on BBC Two. Stanford asks him this question:
Why, though, has he been so very keen for so long to get “proper” Shakespeare back on the BBC (as opposed to the corporation’s more recent standby, filmed versions of stage plays broadcast on BBC Four)?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am enraged by the idea (which goes unchallenged by Sir Richard) that The Hollow Crown is “proper” Shakespeare and that our Royal Shakespeare Company Hamlet with David Tennant, our Rupert Goold-directed Macbeth with Patrick Stewart, and our recent Julius Caesar, again with the RSC and like Hamlet directed by the company’s new Artistic Director Greg Doran, are somehow “standby” – and inferior, not to mention not “proper” – productions. read more »
To the Sage Gateshead for the last of just four performances of a new production of West Side Story. Directed and choreographed by Will Tuckett, it is a thrilling reworking of the Jerome Robbins original, appropriately respectful but also reinventing this masterpiece for the twenty-first century. (Go here for Albert Hickling’s 5-star Guardian review and here for a thoughful piece for the Year of Shakespeare blog by Monika Smialkowska.) A future life for the production is uncertain but I’ll be watching that carefully.
Meanwhile it prompted me to search out some of the best online resources about the late Jerome Robbins, whose original conception West Side Story was, and who was the choreographer and stage director for the premiere in 1957. I also want to try out a new format for recommended links, so following are five web sits and five fragments of video. The first of the latter is the compelling trailer for the movie of West Side Story (directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, 1961):
Let’s be absolutely clear: the opening film in The Hollow Crown, shown on BBC2 last Saturday, is a thrilling Richard II (on BBC iPlayer until 28 July). With Ben Whishaw and Rory Kinnear as, respectively, Richard and Bolingbroke, and as directed by Rupert Goold, this is a wonderfully confident and compelling adaptation distinguished by an astonishing central performance. The film looks great (director of photography Danny Cohen) and it sounds great (composer Adam Cork). That said, I want to ask a few questions of it and raise a concern or two, whilst also exploring a little further its images and ideas. read more »
