This fifth Open Mike Monday piece comes from my Dad. Ian Stuart is a poet, writer, voice actor, Ghost tour guide, raconteur, possibly bon vivant and pen, whiskey and cake enthusiast. As yet he has not attempt to combine the three into some form of boozy ink deploying edible monster that he will, I am …
(Still from the excellent These Glory Days) Here are the answers to the parade I posted over the weekend. This post is utterly crammed with links so if you don’t recognize a character click on their name, or if a book looks interesting click on the title for an Amazon page. -Jack is of course, …
Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for London 2012 was crammed full of meaning and symbolism, concept stacked on concept in a constantly shifting look at British culture that began where the Thames begins and finished with the lighting of the Olympic torch by athletes who have yet to reach their full potential. It was, even in …
Picture a card table, black wood, green felt. Cards are dealt onto the table, old, familiar cards in a routine that’s as familiar but not unwelcome. This is an old trick, but like all great tricks it’s also a great story and seeing that story unfold is always a pleasure. The cards turn, flip, …
Home From The War: The Wyndham Theatre’s 2011 Much Ado About Nothing
You don’t notice him at first. The stage is open, set in a ramshackle garden behind York Library, surrounded by Roman ruins and picnic blankets. It’s light, early evening in the summer, that moment before the curtain comes up mixed with the moment before the sun goes down. Unobtrusively, a man sits down on one …
Over the last year I’ve been to the theatre three times, all different and all fantastic shows. The Mckellen/Stewart Waiting for Godot, a production of Pirates of Penzance that was gloriously, riotously silly and the David Tennant-fronted Hamlet. I reviewed it here, and I wasn’t alone in hailing Tennant as one of the greatest Hamlets …
I watched an actor draw his own map on Saturday. The RSC’s production of Hamlet, held at the Courtyard Theatre whilst their complex is, in essence, rebuilt, has attracted a lot of press due to the casting of both Patrick Stewart as Claudius and David Tennant as Hamlet. Whilst not all of that press …