18th July 2013
We spent Wednesday in Xi’an, partly because we wanted a quieter day with less travelling than we have enjoyed over the past week. I’m also struggling with a head cold which seems a bit unfair, but nonetheless our time continues of course to be fascinating. We decided that our main outing of the day would be the Shaanxi History Museum, said to be one of the finest of China’s museums, and we had been warned to get there early as only a limited number of tickets are made available each day. So we aimed to be there by 8.30am, but first we elected to treat ourselves to a breakfast in Starbucks. read more »
17th July 2013
So is it permitted to acknowledge that one is just a teensy bit underwhelmed by what is reputed to be one of the great sites – and sights – of the ancient world? We have been in Xi’an since Monday evening, where we have been joined by our son Nick who is finishing up his studies at Nottingham University at Ningbo. He too flew here on Monday, in part to meet us after a year of Skype and Whatsapp, but also to go with us to see the Terracotta Warriors which were discovered in 1974 just outside Xi’an. Don’t get me wrong, these tomb companions of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BCE, are definitely worth seeing, but perhaps it’s hard for anything to live up to the hype they have attracted, especially when the crowds are relentless, the sun is broiling and you are suffering from a head cold. read more »
14th July 2013
Since Saturday afternoon we have been in Pingyao, from where we leave on Monday morning to fly to Xi’an. Pingyao is quite wonderful and like nowhere else I have been before, as is the Yide Hotel where we are staying. This is a former townhouse built in the mid-18th century around a linked group of courtyards. In the early 19th century it was the home of the manager of the first bank in Pingyao, which was a key institution in establishing modern systems of credit and savings in China. The house has been beautifully preserved and yet it also has a messiness and a real-world quality that keeps it from feeling unreal. It’s like a stage set for a historical drama, but with enough that is raw and slightly rough to give a rare sense of authenticity. Which can also be said about the town itself. read more »
14th July 2013
Friday afternoon, towards the end of the first week of our China holiday. We are in Datong in the north of the country, not so far from Beijing. In the late fifth century CE (around the time of the last stages in the disintegration of Rome’s empire in the West) Datong was the site of the prosperous capital of the Northern Wei dynasty, one of the three competing states across China in these years. Around 460CE the rulers commissioned a major Buddhist cave temple complex, and this is our destination today. The surviving statues are deeply impressive but the visit as a whole is, like so much on our trip so far a puzzling and even a touch disconcerting experience. read more »
13th July 2013
I’m a little uncertain about whether to contribute this post. After all, I’m off on a family holiday and not travelling for Illuminations. Mostly when I have done Postcards from foreign climes before I have been filming or researching or at a festival. But the present trip is simply and solely for pleasure. My eldest son Nick has been studying for the past year at the University of Nottingham at Ningbo, and before his time here comes to an end my wife Clare, my daughter Kate and I decided we should visit the country where he has spent the last year. So we are here for three weeks, the first of which is drawing to a close – and I’m going to offer some what-I’m-doing-on-my-hols notes from time to time. Normal service will be resumed here after 28 July. read more »
6th July 2013
Today I fly with my family to Beijing for a three week holiday (which I hope partly explains the lack of posts during this past week). I have no sense of how easy or difficult it will be to blog from China but I’ll do my best. PS. Despite my best efforts I have failed to use my iPad to upload an image for this entry.
: After a week here I find it is possible to access my WordPress accounts, and so I have been able to put up two blog posts so far, albeit so far without images. But Facebook and Twitter are both firmly blocked by the great firewall of China.
29th June 2013
Last weekend I was in Stratford-upon-Avon for Midsummer Night’s Dreaming and for the one before I was at a conference. So apologies for the missing Links… Today’s bumper edition aims to go some way to making good (treat the current version as a work in progress, with more to come later today). It certainly starts well with this very good 18-minute video on a topic about which I bang on here; there is also a useful online course from the makers Filmmaker IQ. As for the image above of The Donut Hole from the Tom Gardner collection at the Los Angeles Conservancy archives, see the reference across the jump to the wonderful new Modern Architecture in L.A. website. Thanks for links this week are due to David Haglund at Slate, @melissaterras, @mia_out, @emilynussbaum and @lukemckernan – and now do dive into today’s list of links.
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29th June 2013
On Thursday we filmed a scene from John Lyly’s 1584 play Sapho and Phao for the Shakespearean London Theatres project (ShaLT). That day I wrote Gentle ladies and gentlemen… John Lyly!!!, a post about the dramatist and this bitter-sweet tale of love and longing taken from Ovid. Our director James Wallace (who this weekend is staging Lyly’s The Woman in the Moon at Glastonbury with Shakespeare’s Globe) chose a scene in which Queen Sapho (played by Claire Price) has had her lady -in-waiting Mileta (Bella Heesom) summon the ferryman Phao (David Oakes) to cure a fever. After speaking together, Sapho and Phao are visited by Venus (Nathalie Armin) and Cupid (Robert Heard). Across the jump is a selection of great photographs from the day taken by Todd MacDonald. read more »
28th June 2013
… when we think about The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable?
Which is, of course, the latest immersive extravaganza from Punchdrunk, co-presented with The National Theatre (until 30 December). For background see Andrew Dickson’s feature for the Guardian. You are asked to don a mask and enter the world of the ‘legendary’ Temple Studios (just by Paddington station), which supposedly
… was established in 1942 as the British outpost for major Hollywood studio Republic Pictures. For a brief period during the 1950s it was a prolific powerhouse producing films across a variety of genres including period dramas, musicals, historical epics and intimate thrillers. In the early 1960s the output of the studio waned and employees were sworn to secrecy about the studio’s projects. Little is known about the films in development at that time. In October 1962 the studio was closed overnight. The dramatic events that led to the building being condemned have been a closely kept secret ever since.
The show is mystifying and eerie and engaging and delightful and weird and spectacular and, right at the end, a bit irritating. It is distinctive and original, and yet at the same time draws on and echoes a galaxy of influences, a list of which I began to compile as I wandered around. This is my list of 23 so far… read more »
26th June 2013
Gentles all, put your hands together, please, for Mr John Lyly. We’ll come to he actually was in a moment, but first consider this: on Thursday the Illuminations team is filming a scene from his celebrated drama Sapho and Phao; then over the weekend his play The Woman in the Moon is being presented at Glastonbury. Early in August another Lyly drama, Gallathea, is to be given at Wilderness Festival. And sooner than you can say Mother Bombie (yet another of his plays) a new full-length study of the man and his work, John Lyly and Early Modern Authorship, is to be published from the pen of Dr Andy Kesson. Still no wiser? Well, he is almost certainly the most significant sixteenth-century playwright that almost certainly only a few of you will have heard. But you will, you will – especially if you read on. read more »
