Through yesterday I posted some thoughts from The Live Cinema Conference 2016 at King’s College London. At the end of the day we retired for the traditional post-discussion drinks (even if some were surprised that an event with a comparatively high ticket cost rolled out a cash bar). As we were standing around musing and moaning, we were interrupted by the appearance of a KCL alumnus who it transpired was a prominent barrister in the early 1960s. And so began a promenade drama that led us into an encore screening of NT Live’s recent broadcast of Hangmen. Additional accompaniments were to include both some further dramatic pieces and an introduction to ‘edible cinema’. I have to admit that, while I found elements of this engaging, it didn’t really deliver for me, and at the interval I mentally made my excuses and left. I was tired, in part after a slightly disappointing day that ultimately I decided was grounded in a category error. Of which more below. read more »
To King’s College London today for The Live Cinema Conference 2016. This intriguing event intends to explore the full range of live cinema today including ‘the production, delivery and attendance of outdoor screenings, drive-ins, sing-a-longs, sensory augmentations, fully immersive experiences and event-led distribution, spanning the independent to the mainstream.’ So not just the broadcasting of theatre in cinemas, which of course is my particular interest and which will be an element in the day’s focus. And then there’s a special presentation of the recent NT Live presentation of Hangmen (above) this evening for which we are promised:
a unique fusion of performance, film and food in a playful re-play of the play. For the first time, the forms and aesthetics of ‘event’ cinema, ‘live’ cinema and promenade theatre are united in a hybrid, multi-layered, immersive and sensory experience, which promises to delight, surprise and enthrall (sic) the audience.
The full programme of today’s event is here. In the spirit of the occasion – and assuming I can secure a reasonable wi-fi connection, I’m going to try live blogging with occasional posts through the day. So check back later and/or follow me on Twitter @illuminations with #LCCUK16.
Last Thursday I was at the British Library for a fascinating conference titled Radio Modernisms: Features, Cultures and the BBC (the conference programme is here, along with abstracts and biographies). Organised by my University of Westminster colleagues Amanda Wrigley and Aasiya Lodhi, a number of really strong papers explored aspects of the modernist encounters between radio and literature in the mid-20th century. An especial highlight was the keynote by Todd Avery from UMass Lowell, who developed the ground-breaking arguments of his book Radio Modernism by exploring the legacy in this context of Walter Pater and aestheticism. And at the end of the day we were treated to a ‘listening’ of Louis MacNeice’s radio feature Portrait of Athens, 1951. read more »
I think I met the great graphic designer David King, who has died, just once. Yet he shaped my visual imagination and gave form to the fight that defined my first years as a writer. I think I said hello to him when he came to the Islington offices of City Limits in the autumn of 1981. City Limits was the weekly guide that the majority of the staff of Time Out set up after a bitter dispute earlier that year. We were protecting the principle that everyone on the magazine, from receptionist to editor, was paid the same salary. Strange as this may seem, it felt important to us then, and it remains important to me, even if now it seems more utopian than realisable. But it had been achieved and, in the face of opposition from Time Out‘s owner, we were determined to keep it alive. So we begged and borrowed enough money to start a rival and asked David King to design it for us. read more »
The best book that I read on holiday recently was a novel first published in 1963. My overwhelming feeling on finishing The Expendable Man was that both it and its author, Dorothy B. Hughes, deserve to be far better-known than, at least in Britain, they are. In a way, The Expendable Man is a noir novel, and certainly there’s a murder and a mystery and a manhunt. But the book is also a remarkable study of social attitudes in America, an exploration of race and of sex and of class in the early ’60s. This was the moment when John F Kennedy’s progressive administration had begun to make an impact but when ingrained prejudices were still powerful – as they remain today in many parts of the United States. Which is part of why The Expendable Man feels so contemporary. read more »
Something is happening here, with Donald Trump, and no-one really knows what it is. These are four important and truly, truly scary Stateside articles that begin to make sense of it:
The vital and valid lesson of the Trump phenomenon is that if the elites cannot govern by compromise, someone outside will eventually try to govern by popular passion and brute force… It seems shocking to argue that we need elites in this democratic age — especially with vast inequalities of wealth and elite failures all around us. But we need them precisely to protect this precious democracy from its own destabilizing excesses.
I fell well short this past week of my intention to post more often than every Sunday, but I shall do better next. Meanwhile, here is today’s list of links to interesting and surprising stuff from the past week.
After a really splendid week walking in Italy (thanks to Inntravel and their itinerary A Stroll Through History), it’s back to a busy week, starting with Simon Rattle on Sky Arts tonight.
Monday
Tonight at 9pm sees the premiere of our new Sky Arts programme, Simon Rattle conducts The Seasons. Just exactly a month ago at London’s Barbican Centre we recorded the great conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Chorus performing Haydn’s 1801 oratorio The Seasons. The soloists are soprano Monika Eder, baritone Florian Boesch and tenorAndrew Staples, who was a late replacement for the indisposed John Mark Ainsley. The resulting 140-minute programme, which is a co-production with the LSO, features the full work, together with introductory comments by Simon Rattle between each of the four sections. Rhodri Huw directs the screen version with his invariable flair and precision, and Lucie Conrad is our producer. read more »
Back from a week’s walking in Italy, I am happy to propose today’s links to stuff that I have found interesting and useful over the past week; I’ll contribute some additional ones later today.
• Remembering John Krish, 1923-2016: touching tributes from three BFI staffers to a singular filmmaker (above in a 2003 photograph by Peter Everard Smith) who has died, plus some great clips.
