Modern Stratford-Upon-Avon



I chose the Curtain Call Guest House because of the name and somewhat because of the price (£35 a night). It’s about fifteen minutes outside the town centre, which meant I had the daily anticipation of going to Stratford. Having not stayed in a guest house before, I wasn’t sure what to expect but this was exactly what I needed – a comfy bed. The landlords, Cheryl and David were very friendly, accommodating and thoughtful; on the nights I was going to be out late at the theatre they left the light on in the dining room. All of the other guests I met were regulars – regular enough to be able to chat about family – so this is the kind of place that people like to return to and feel safe.

Most mornings I kept to muselli and croissants but on the Friday I treated myself to a fry up and it was very, very nice indeed and I could tell it was local sourced – whilst I was eating the delivery from the local farm arrived. I needed a good breakfast because in general I’m horrible about keeping to lunch time whenever I’m away from home, even on day trips and this was no exception. The best lunch I had was at The Posh Corner Shop, a café/delicatessen not too far up from Shakespeare’s original school, where I sat in the window and ate a coffee and giant apricot Danish pastry and wrote my parents a postcard saying as much. I never know what to say on those things.

Evening mealtimes can be the strangest parts of the day when you’re travelling alone. Restaurants tend to be geared towards groups, the event of the meal playing slowly across an evening, whereas us singletons, even if we try and pace ourselves, can be in and out in half an hour and if we’re not careful the process is reduced to the function it really is rather than the entertainment it should be. Most of the streets in Stratford town consist of restaurants, chains and independents so there’s lots of choice, too much choice probably, so I tried to go for the ‘interesting’ options:

Historical

The Garrick Inn is reputed to be the oldest pub in Stratford; the building dates from the Elizabethan era and it became a drinking hole in the early 1700s. It was renamed for the actor in mid-late 18th century after he held a three day jubilee for his favourite playwright in the town which is seen as one of the attempts to confirm his legendary status in the modern era. The interior has clearly been remodelled a few times since then, so there’s a proper restaurant section at the back and waitress service.

The chicken and bacon salad was alright; the mix of two different dressings gave it an odd smell but the poultry was succulent enough. But the real entertainment came from watching the serving staff as they negotiated the order of an American couple who were sitting at the back who from what I could gather had given all of the necessary impressions that they hadn’t decided what they were having yet then strolled up to the counter wondering why their food hadn’t arrived yet.

The two waitresses thought through events and compared notes like detectives working over a witness statement and concluded that in fact the couple hadn’t ordered – there was no paper evidence – but then it became apparent that even after the man had appeared and complained they still weren’t sure what it was he wanted to be eating (was it fish and chips?) and that one of them was going to have to go to customer and get a clarification. I didn’t envy them.

The Chain

The “Godfather of Italian gastronomy” (according to his website) Antonio Carluccio has a string of restaurants and cafes across the country; blue and white trimmed interior is split between a well stocked shop and eating area. I think this was the worst experience of the week, but that probably had more to do with me being alone and not being able to work out what I’d be doing with the rest of the evening than the food, the Insalata Di Primaver a “sautéed pancetta, gorgonzola cheese and walnuts with rocket, spinach and radicchio leaves” (the menu is online) or the environment – it was early in the evening and there was only me and a large family group and as much as I enjoy my own company, sitting next to a mirror isn’t the same thing.

The Theatre

The Courtyard Theatre has a restaurant café which like the Everyman in Liverpool offers a mix of standard, regular menu items and specials. Reaching the theatre two hours before the performance I decided to try and spread the meal out so had all three courses (somehow managing the next thing half an hour after the last). Having watched people eating outside the previous couple of nights, I decided to take my soup near the entrance, but of course it was far too windy that and as I’m desperately trying to spoon the mushrooms into my mouth one hand I’m variously holding down my book and some paper napkins with the other.

The interior looks as you’d hope it would, with proper café style furniture with tables in RSC red the walls covered in posters advertising the latest productions. Being awkward and admittedly slightly ironic, I asked the waitress if I could have half of a Warwickshire share-board, a sort of ploughman’s lunch for two people. The question was passed through many mouths until it reached the kitchen then back again in the positive. It turned out to be a breadboard covered in chicken, ham, cheese, salad and bread and turned out to be the most filling meal of the week, so I can’t imagine what the full one was like.

As ever I hummed and hahared over the desert, eventually coming down on the side of a victoria sponge after the waitress suggested it because I was clearly going to miss the start of the play if she didn’t point me in a direction. I maintain I would have got there in the end, but given I was the sitting next to stage its probably best that I wasn’t trolling in, cake crumbs across my front, just as Caesar got the sharp end of Brutus’s knife. I told them as I left that this had been my best meal of the week. Which it had. Then.

Interesting

Banjaxed for reasons I’ll get to some other time (this holiday will be good for a fair few more blog posts I’m sure) I was looking for something easy but also interesting for my final night. I did consider something with a Shakespearean theme – Othello’s perhaps? Mistress Quickly’s? But stopped instead at Edward Moons. The penny farthing on the sign makes it stand out as does the mission statement printed in the window and also appearing on the website, describing who Mr. Moon was and why he deserved to have a restaurant named after him:
”Edward Moon was a travelling chef working in the British Colonial service in the early nineteen hundreds. […] Edward was also a creative cook, enthusiastic and excited by the local ingredients, cooking styles and methods he encountered on his exotic travels.[…] He retired to England in 1940 and recorded his experiences, philosophy and recipes in a book “The Travelling Cook’s Companion” It is the spirit described in this book that has helped us inspire our restaurants. “
I’ve trimmed it a bit but you get the message. I was intrigued. Then the specials board drew me even closer to the door. Game pie. Game pie!?! I’ve always wanted to try that, properly cooked, not the soggy relic you find in some supermarkets. Inside the restaurant a group of people had spotted me looking in and were grinning and waving, two empty wine bottles nearby. I asked for a review. My thumb went up. Three thrumbs up was the reply. Good enough.

Inside looks like an Edwardian working men’s club. I sat next to a fireplace in which it looked like Phyllius Fogg had stacked his luggage whilst he to took repose and there was a general atmosphere of comfortable sophistication totally unlike anywhere else in Stratford. Some of that had to do with the waitresses; for the first time that week I felt like I was talking to a human being as they greeted me, sat me down, took my order, but all in such a way that made me feel welcome, like a regular. After each course they asked me if I’d enjoyed what I’d been presented with but in such a way that sounded like it actually mattered.

The tomato soup was light and a good appetiser but the Game Pie was something else. An oval dish filled with birds of a flavour I couldn’t identify, gravy and topped with a mountain of mashed potato but unlike similar dishes even when I thought I’d decimated the flesh, another piece appeared from underneath an onion. It tasted familiar and yet not at the same time and I was glad I was only drinking water with it so that my tastebuds could savour the culinary vacation they were experiencing. When asked all I could muster was “Lovely, thanks” which was understating things a little bit. In the donchyouknow parts of the world this is probably average, but for a mouth used to a frozen shepherd’s pie from Asda this was paradise.

But here’s why I’d return to Edward Moon’s again, and it’s a very small thing. At the end of the first two course I needed a break but knew I wanted to try one of the deserts which I’ve seen floating by. The waitress said that they closed at about 8:30 or 9:00 and after spending an hour at the RSC again I returned. They remembered who I was, remembered I was back for my desert and seemed genuinely pleased to see me, none of which sounds too special and should be standard but often isn’t. After I’d ordered the strawberry Crème-Brule (another new experience) she asked if I’d like another glass of water. She’d remembered that too and I hadn’t had to ask. Oh how I tipped …

The penny farthing on the sign



Food I chose the Curtain Call Guest House because of the name and somewhat because of the price (£35 a night). It’s about fifteen minutes outside the town centre, which meant I had the daily anticipation of going to Stratford. Having not stayed in a guest house before, I wasn’t sure what to expect but this was exactly what I needed – a comfy bed. The landlords, Cheryl and David were very friendly, accommodating and thoughtful; on the nights I was going to be out late at the theatre they left the light on in the dining room. All of the other guests I met were regulars – regular enough to be able to chat about family – so this is the kind of place that people like to return to and feel safe.

Most mornings I kept to muselli and croissants but on the Friday I treated myself to a fry up and it was very, very nice indeed and I could tell it was local sourced – whilst I was eating the delivery from the local farm arrived. I needed a good breakfast because in general I’m horrible about keeping to lunch time whenever I’m away from home, even on day trips and this was no exception. The best lunch I had was at The Posh Corner Shop, a café/delicatessen not too far up from Shakespeare’s original school, where I sat in the window and ate a coffee and giant apricot Danish pastry and wrote my parents a postcard saying as much. I never know what to say on those things.

Evening mealtimes can be the strangest parts of the day when you’re travelling alone. Restaurants tend to be geared towards groups, the event of the meal playing slowly across an evening, whereas us singletons, even if we try and pace ourselves, can be in and out in half an hour and if we’re not careful the process is reduced to the function it really is rather than the entertainment it should be. Most of the streets in Stratford town consist of restaurants, chains and independents so there’s lots of choice, too much choice probably, so I tried to go for the ‘interesting’ options:

Historical

The Garrick Inn is reputed to be the oldest pub in Stratford; the building dates from the Elizabethan era and it became a drinking hole in the early 1700s. It was renamed for the actor in mid-late 18th century after he held a three day jubilee for his favourite playwright in the town which is seen as one of the attempts to confirm his legendary status in the modern era. The interior has clearly been remodelled a few times since then, so there’s a proper restaurant section at the back and waitress service.

The chicken and bacon salad was alright; the mix of two different dressings gave it an odd smell but the poultry was succulent enough. But the real entertainment came from watching the serving staff as they negotiated the order of an American couple who were sitting at the back who from what I could gather had given all of the necessary impressions that they hadn’t decided what they were having yet then strolled up to the counter wondering why their food hadn’t arrived yet.

The two waitresses thought through events and compared notes like detectives working over a witness statement and concluded that in fact the couple hadn’t ordered – there was no paper evidence – but then it became apparent that even after the man had appeared and complained they still weren’t sure what it was he wanted to be eating (was it fish and chips?) and that one of them was going to have to go to customer and get a clarification. I didn’t envy them.

The Chain

The “Godfather of Italian gastronomy” (according to his website) Antonio Carluccio has a string of restaurants and cafes across the country; blue and white trimmed interior is split between a well stocked shop and eating area. I think this was the worst experience of the week, but that probably had more to do with me being alone and not being able to work out what I’d be doing with the rest of the evening than the food, the Insalata Di Primaver a “sautéed pancetta, gorgonzola cheese and walnuts with rocket, spinach and radicchio leaves” (the menu is online) or the environment – it was early in the evening and there was only me and a large family group and as much as I enjoy my own company, sitting next to a mirror isn’t the same thing.

The Theatre

The Courtyard Theatre has a restaurant café which like the Everyman in Liverpool offers a mix of standard, regular menu items and specials. Reaching the theatre two hours before the performance I decided to try and spread the meal out so had all three courses (somehow managing the next thing half an hour after the last). Having watched people eating outside the previous couple of nights, I decided to take my soup near the entrance, but of course it was far too windy that and as I’m desperately trying to spoon the mushrooms into my mouth one hand I’m variously holding down my book and some paper napkins with the other.

The interior looks as you’d hope it would, with proper café style furniture with tables in RSC red the walls covered in posters advertising the latest productions. Being awkward and admittedly slightly ironic, I asked the waitress if I could have half of a Warwickshire share-board, a sort of ploughman’s lunch for two people. The question was passed through many mouths until it reached the kitchen then back again in the positive. It turned out to be a breadboard covered in chicken, ham, cheese, salad and bread and turned out to be the most filling meal of the week, so I can’t imagine what the full one was like.

As ever I hummed and hahared over the desert, eventually coming down on the side of a victoria sponge after the waitress suggested it because I was clearly going to miss the start of the play if she didn’t point me in a direction. I maintain I would have got there in the end, but given I was the sitting next to stage its probably best that I wasn’t trolling in, cake crumbs across my front, just as Caesar got the sharp end of Brutus’s knife. I told them as I left that this had been my best meal of the week. Which it had. Then.

Interesting

Banjaxed for reasons I’ll get to some other time (this holiday will be good for a fair few more blog posts I’m sure) I was looking for something easy but also interesting for my final night. I did consider something with a Shakespearean theme – Othello’s perhaps? Mistress Quickly’s? But stopped instead at Edward Moons. The penny farthing on the sign makes it stand out as does the mission statement printed in the window and also appearing on the website, describing who Mr. Moon was and why he deserved to have a restaurant named after him:
”Edward Moon was a travelling chef working in the British Colonial service in the early nineteen hundreds. […] Edward was also a creative cook, enthusiastic and excited by the local ingredients, cooking styles and methods he encountered on his exotic travels.[…] He retired to England in 1940 and recorded his experiences, philosophy and recipes in a book “The Travelling Cook’s Companion” It is the spirit described in this book that has helped us inspire our restaurants. “
I’ve trimmed it a bit but you get the message. I was intrigued. Then the specials board drew me even closer to the door. Game pie. Game pie!?! I’ve always wanted to try that, properly cooked, not the soggy relic you find in some supermarkets. Inside the restaurant a group of people had spotted me looking in and were grinning and waving, two empty wine bottles nearby. I asked for a review. My thumb went up. Three thrumbs up was the reply. Good enough.

Inside looks like an Edwardian working men’s club. I sat next to a fireplace in which it looked like Phyllius Fogg had stacked his luggage whilst he to took repose and there was a general atmosphere of comfortable sophistication totally unlike anywhere else in Stratford. Some of that had to do with the waitresses; for the first time that week I felt like I was talking to a human being as they greeted me, sat me down, took my order, but all in such a way that made me feel welcome, like a regular. After each course they asked me if I’d enjoyed what I’d been presented with but in such a way that sounded like it actually mattered.

The tomato soup was light and a good appetiser but the Game Pie was something else. An oval dish filled with birds of a flavour I couldn’t identify, gravy and topped with a mountain of mashed potato but unlike similar dishes even when I thought I’d decimated the flesh, another piece appeared from underneath an onion. It tasted familiar and yet not at the same time and I was glad I was only drinking water with it so that my tastebuds could savour the culinary vacation they were experiencing. When asked all I could muster was “Lovely, thanks” which was understating things a little bit. In the donchyouknow parts of the world this is probably average, but for a mouth used to a frozen shepherd’s pie from Asda this was paradise.

But here’s why I’d return to Edward Moon’s again, and it’s a very small thing. At the end of the first two course I needed a break but knew I wanted to try one of the deserts which I’ve seen floating by. The waitress said that they closed at about 8:30 or 9:00 and after spending an hour at the RSC again I returned. They remembered who I was, remembered I was back for my desert and seemed genuinely pleased to see me, none of which sounds too special and should be standard but often isn’t. After I’d ordered the strawberry Crème-Brule (another new experience) she asked if I’d like another glass of water. She’d remembered that too and I hadn’t had to ask. Oh how I tipped …

links for 2009-07-03

  • As the people in the comments point out it's not the first, more the first one that they've consciously selected. Spotify (as in all thngs) would be a great delivery service for audio books and I have contacted a couple of publishers (well BBC Audio and Big Finish) to ask them to think about releasing their material on the service. It's all to do with maximising revenue and making up for losses from people who stop buying the cds because they can hear it here in a medium which doesn't have the same potential for repeat listens.

The Dead Line.

Radio Later on You And Yours we talk to the residents of South Wales, who’ve been unable to use their telephone service for quite some days with vital services being effected. BT say that they’re doing all they can, but people who’ve contacted us via the internet are furious about the lack of communication they’ve been receiving. “Not even a phone call” says Roxy from Newport …

How many old flames does Captain Jack have? In two out of three of these plays we’ve met some long lost loves, both of them singed by him and Torchwood though it’s good to know, judging by Dona (Matron Casp) Croll's nostalgic performance that they’re not all loonies despite having to deal with a Dorian Gray whose magic picture is his own reflection in a mirror. So whilst the amnesiac Eighth Doctor was working his way through the twentieth century trying desperately not to offend anybody (depending upon how broad your approach is to canonicity) Captain Jack was shagging anything with a pulse, the cad. Assuming as upcoming revelations suggest he didn’t always love them and leave them, his alimony bill must be ignominious.

Just as these three radio plays look like they’re about to pass on without some kind of Declassified style treatment, the producer, Kate McCall, has posted this useful post at the Radio 4 blog about the production. The main issue seems to have been the availability of the regular cast who were all passionate to take part but found themselves otherwise potentially engaged in other more lucrative projects starring Trevor Eve, with Barrowman recording his section in about two days between between the end of his tv show and the opening of his national tour. Talk about making someone feel guilty...

Today’s edition of Torchwood, Phil Ford’s The Dead Line was apparently the most hit – John’s participation curtailed leading to “a major creative decision” to Jack’s storyline, one of which was presumably led to him being out of action for much of the duration. This eleventh hour rewrite must have had two effects – the building up of Rhys’s part so that he’s effectively a full blown Torchwood member for the duration (when he was clearly otherwise the prime candidate for the temporary vegitative state) and some filler material in the shape of Ianto’s chat with his boyfriend in a coma and as is so often the case in these situations those are the best things about an episode that more than the other two gave the impression of being proper Torchwood, except on the radio.

Like the other two plays, the main story wasn’t particularly strong or original, but here Ford, whose writing has wobbled left and right in the past few years (as viewers of The Sarah Jane Adventures will have endured) milked it for all its horrific potential so whilst the idea of having an appliance that pervades modern life becoming a deadly killer (or in this case non-killer) is something we’ve seen a fair few times before and probably would have worked just as well in SJA with some tweaking, his d escription of the effects, the stillness, the eyes, the minimal brain activity added reality particularly since that description is equally applicable to the specimen/cretin who sat behind me on the bus the other day listening to Akon through his mobile phone speaker.

This subliminal advert for Skype showed how extraordinary situations can allow couples, in this case Gwen & Rhys & Ianto & Jack, to say what they want to say and sometimes get an answer. In other words that it’s good to talk. Which also makes it a subliminal ad for BT too, I suppose, assuming they're not under the grip of some molevolant force which isn't always certain in the real world if you've ever had to face down the automated system. Frankly given all the TV Cream / I Love the 70s palava I'm surprised Ford didn't also decide to sneak in a reference to sinister dead-eyed phone call eavesdropper Busby for extra creepiness. A giant man sized version of him once frightened the shit out of me at the Liverpool Show.

Some of Ford’s previous writing has been a bit mechanical (Invasion of the Bane a particular low), but on the basis of The Dead Line I can understand why Davies was happy to collaborate with him on the specials. Given the chance to write for adults (both in the narrative and the audience), his characterisation was top notch, especially the scenes between man and spouse as we heard how the trousers are passed about in that relationship, Gwen now and then sounding like Rhys’s mother desperate to protect him, her needing a loving word and a cuddle and a slap-up breakfast, even if one of one of them does see it returning in the opposite direction later in the day.

Whereas the authors of the previous two plays were description happy, Ford knows that sometimes in audio, offering an impressionistic idea of the world can be even more effective than completely orientating the audience. Notice that in the scene were Gwen and Rhys visit the source of the problem and break through to the room in which the ringing telephone is hiding, all we hear is the sound of whatever they find and their reaction to it; we’re left hanging until some way into the next scene to find out what they’ve discovered and the state it was in, and because our attention is drawn to it, our imagination happily gets lost in the gory details.

If I was an unforgiving mood, I’d rattle something terrible about the climax, a Fanthorpian deus ex machina utilising the sonic screwdriver with a male enhancement procedure that is the Hub and its convenient ability to interface via a PDA with the hospital’s medical facilities but since we can’t be sure if that to was a result of the Bannerman related last minute rewrite, let’s just assume that the original idea was better and with a hope that the upcoming miniseries isn't solved with quite so much ease whatever catastrophe we're about to witness.

Luckily, a quick Twitter survey (and the thoughts in my own head) indicate this play’s probably going to be remembered for Ianto’s speech. In the pre-publicity interviews for the shows, Gareth David-Lloyd talked about how in one of the plays he’d enjoyed working his way through a three page speech that was unlike anything else he’d had to tackle on the series before and what a privelige it was (or words to that effect). That’s understating things a smidge isn’t it?

Though it covered much the same sentiment and ground as School Reunion and dozens of episodes of Highlander and every vampire love story ever written, this was intimate, emotive and cut the heart of the budding relationship between Jack and Ianto, Gareth at his sentimental finest. Compare the moment when he choked back a tear to the severe weather warning waiting to happen in Countrycide and we see a maturingg actor who understands what his character is about. Plus, though it's probably redundant to note this, how wonderful that a gay relationship can be dealt with such subtely in an afternoon slot on Radio Four. How far we've all come.

You can download the play here for the next week at least, and you really should. It's (generally) ace.

Twitter says it made people cry. Good-oh.

Next week: Anything could happen in the next five hours ...

links for 2009-07-02

  • "Take the retired Broadway lyricist and composer John Wallowitch, host of John’s Cabaret, “the only piano bar of the airwaves.” As a phone number crawled across the bottom of the screen, Wallowitch, sitting at an upright piano, in evening dress and a bow tie, took requests over the air. He would perform whatever song his audiences wanted to hear, whether he knew the words or not. The show was surreal, but it was also truly interactive."

  • 10 ... 10 ... 10 ... 10 ...

  • Wide ranging and quite challenging interview covering everything from web presence to the future of schedule design. Includes talk of a season of programmes about Shakespeare to support the broadcast of the RSC Hamlet and a return of really high end cultural programming, such as documentaries about Nietzsche.

  • Some very good writing in today's G2 special and plenty I didn't know about the mission. The astronauts were sent to visit the engineers in the factories to motivate their work and remind them that the work were doing was protecting the safety of people who they'd met personally.

Golden Age.

“Hello and welcome to Excess Baggage with me Sandi Toksvig. Today, India and slightly different view of the subcontinent with our guest Ianto Jones of Torchwood. Ianto, hello.”
“Hellooo.”
“So Ianto. Tell us about your visit to India.”
“I can’t reeally. It’s classified.”
“Oh. Um, okaaay. So what did you do while you were there?”
”I can’t tell you that either. That’s classified too.”
“And yet we invited you on.”
“I knoow. Strange that. Can I have cup of coffee?”


Radio In its somewhat random history, Torchwood has had a tricky time coping with how to approach it’s own mythology. Not aided by a symbiotic relationship to the mother series and to some extent its younger sister, it’s had to be cautious when establishing anything just in case it interferes with the plans of either Doctor Who or The Sarah Jane Adventures (something us continuity wonks will be fixing our beady eyes on next week). So it’s generally looked inward offering glimpses of earlier Torchwood both in Cardiff and across the world and James Goss’s Golden Age or Torchwood Flies The World, with its excursion to Delhi, is another example of that and crucially in comparison to yesterday afternoon’s story, actually making the most of its radio format to deliver places which would not necessarily be available on the current budget for the show.

Lord knows what the typical audience for this timeslot made of it. I offered the same point in my review of Lost Souls, but do people just tune in every day at 2.15pm no matter what’s on, a continuity heavy blast of sci-fi adventure, or as they may have heard on Tuesday a drama about assisted suicide? Either way, it’s to the good that Goss didn’t attempt to explain everything from the off, preferring to alienate potentially unaware listeners whilst keeping us happy (even hurling in a squee worthy mention for some silver balls) and delivering a fun, sometimes intriguing story that made me laugh on at least a couple of occasions even if ten minutes before the end I realised I was listening to the Soylent Green Corporation doing a cover version of City of Death. And said so. Out loud. With a contraction then a swear word in front.

It took a while, but all of the elements which sounded a bit familiar and niggled throughout began to coalesce. Instead of Scarlioni/Scaroth we have The Duchess, or Charley Pollard’s sister Cecelia with a game face. An old colonial mansion for the chateau. Space age wi-fi rather than the now retro seeming micromeson scanner. General odd-jobber Mr. Mahajan for mad old Dr. Kerensky. And a time bubble designed to recreate a previous status quo. There are only seven stories in the world, or twelve, or two or however many they’re currently teaching in creative writing classes right now and this paragraph belabours the point, but I’m just relaying the experience of listening to the play and once again it was somewhat spent decoding where in the franchise an iteration of this story had appeared before.

Still it its impressive to hear the series reach into thematically complex territory in talking about overpopularion though I can't quite believe that these multitudes could disappear in India without someone noticing (unless they were seeding the water with retcon). A colonial Torchwood is a neat idea, however, and having them previously bruised by Captain Jack following establishment orders underscores the kind of man he became to survive after being plopped in the 19th century first time around as well as demonstrating how this kind of organisation, if it did exist, would clearly be buffeted by world events. Just a pity it's another example of him atoning for another previous fuck-up, this time leaving just the right kind of alien tech in the wrong hands for maximum levels of catastrophe. Also, why Torchwood India not Torchwood Delhi if Torchwood Cardiff is Torchwood Cardiff not Torchwood Wales?

A larger than life character in the spirit of Captain John, The Duchess (who probably looks like Kiera Knightley) proves a decent foil though the chemistry between Jasmine Hyde and the Barrowman was rather low, the latter often sounds uncomfortable without a camera lense to relate to. You'd also think these two would have more to reminisce about than proper dancing, though no doubt the timeslot was a factor in this and we were supposed to read between the lines or childish giggles, an extended version for the cd could feature the untransmittable extended flashbacks utilising the soundtrack from Elvira Madrigan. Or whatever. Not that I've thought too much about it. Then again, having had to sit through a similar conversation in real life ("Do you remember when we went to that hotel with the broken springs on the bed etc") perhaps Goss stopped short at just the right moment.

Eve and Gareth are well served by the material continuing the dynamic we saw in the Doctor Who orgasmo-finale, suggesting a less buttoned up Sarah-Jane and Harry, especially in that lovely moment when Gwen was awakening in captivity and Ianto broke their predicament to her ‘gently’. As lovable as Tosh and eventually Owen were, this new trimmed down configuration seems to work rather better in story telling terms, subtlely fleshing out the remaining characters. Ianto still remains a slightly weird figure though. He's not quite gotten over the cry baby image of the first tv season especially the Cyberwoman thing, or the oddness with watching Paul O'Grady in a crisis much later. 4oD is fabulous but was that the right time? Already worked your way through the whole of Press Gang? Disappointed that Pob isn't available?

I'm babbling now (it's the heat) so I'd best end with this: I spent this past weekend watching some of the BBC’s productions of Shakespeare’s history plays from the 1980s. They’re very good, all the generational skullduggery of I, Claudius except rewriting our own history. Brenda Blethyn plays Joan of Arc like she's just stepped out of a Mike Leigh drama. The Idiot’s Lantern’s Ron Cook does Richard III as a kind of northern spiv. Most of these things are three or four hours long, but none of them feel like it because between the text and the direction it runs like the clappers with battle after unceasing battle spilling across the space as the crown is relayed between successive camps.

By comparison, the first half hour of Golden Age feels twice as long because we're essentially waiting for the villains to reveal their plan to Torchwood, with the inevitable delayed verbally in the case of The Duchess and her feminine whatsits or the guided tour George gave the other two, our/somebody's heroes not really discovering the horror for themselves, but being told what was going on to a narrative timetable. I’m no writer (obviously) but I think I would have probably had the team break free much earlier than that, with Torchwood India/Delhi/whatever chasing them around a bit attempting to protect their secret, with lots of shouting and more blasts of that gun. But with forty-odd minutes worth of drama to fill and a limited cast, what are you going to do?

Tomorrow: "Hello? Hello? I'm in Torchwood. It's ...."

links for 2009-07-01

Asylum.

Radio Burning. Burning. Open the window. Close the fabric flaps. Download. Download. Head speakers on. Hear. Noise. Welsh. Imaginary domesticated animal. Loud music. Lots of heavy breathing before wordage. Bevattna. Bevattna. Tired, so tired. Boredom. Depression. Irritation. Indignation. No – no – no! Off! Off!

Spoilers ahead.

Torchwood’s back then. Eight episodes, ten days, four stories beginning with some specially recorded radio prequels/useful merchandising opportunities because last year’s Large Hadron Collider episode was so well received (well I didn’t think it was that bad). John Barrowman said recently in the Radio Times that he thought that the reduction in editions felt like a punishment (as well he might having had to sit through Something Borrowed). At a time when the license fee is being crunched, he should be pleased that the show’s still being made at all, let alone in this truncated state. Primevil’s not even being gifted a tv movie to close out its cliffhanger (at least Hannah won’t be out of work, S Club are touring again). The BBC simply can’t justify spending thirteen episodes on any sci-fi series in this climate unless it has the letters d, o, c, t, o, r, w, h and another o in the title. Obviously.

Anyway to the asylum, sorry, Asylum by Anita Sullivan, in which the Torchwood team met a refugee from a Woman’s Hour drama, internal monologue intact, and helped her get her life sorted out. That’s an over-simplication of course; she was an alien from the future who’d been dragged through the rift by a future version of the institute with an elastic understanding of temporal mechanics, in the pricess making a point about how Torchwood treats visiting aliens, that they’re not all bug eyed monsters hell bent on global destruction, some of them just want a place to kip with state benefits. In other words, like another ‘very special episode’ this time constructed around a Daily Fail baiting (this time non-existent) day of programmes about a hot topic with the usual constraints about having to make a point about something sacrificing proper drama in the process.

Generally underwhelmed, I kept expecting it to tip over into something more involving, a twist which set everything on its head. Nothing. For hardy fans of the franchise, an amnesiatic sixteen year old girl babbling in a strange language being arrested for shop lifting is clearly either going to be an alien or from another time. Or both. Fans of Skins would obviously have another opinion. Given that Asylum was supposed to launch a new short series of radio plays and signal the return of Torchwood to our screens, Sullivan’s play was hardly the slam-blam-creepy-glorious adventure we know this corner of the franchise is capable of (for better or worse) and something which sounded like it could have been put together for television on the average budget of an episode of The Bill.

Brave perhaps, then, to tell a small story in these circumstance, but with just three episodes to play about with, why not take advantage of our imagination and do something really spectacular, something startling, rather than 'show' us the interior of a safe house, some terraces and a lake? The future language was nicely developed, and well done to Erin Richards for wrapping her larynx around that, and the form could only have been done on radio, but it just -- wasn't -- enough. Usually in these reviews I like to write about individual scenes, what worked, what didn't, but just hours later I can't think of anything specific. Nothing especially bad, I suppose, just ...

I know this was being made for Radio Four in the afternoon which would hardly be the place for a Day One, but does have to be a rerun of the tepid Out of Time (to the point of referencing that exercise in romantic witlessism mid-stream)? I'm not really criticising the writer in this -- well alright perhaps a little -- but she was simply comissioned to write the story in this way -- and given the ideas she's produced on radio and in theatre before (detailed here) and she's talked recently (in the Radio Times too) of giving Cardiff loads of ideas to choose, I simply wonder what fell by the wayside. Sullivan clearly grasps what Torchwood was about. She captured the individual character voices beautifully, especially Gwen. She even picked up the television series's habit of moving the plot forward by having a Torchwood member leaving their keys in a motor vehicle.

There were still some entertaining elements. We love PC Andy and it was fun to finally hear him reacting to what Gwen’s been doing with her life since she left the police force, Tom Price almost channelling Jason Mewes in Dogma when he was trying to comprehend the existence of aliens (though with less swearing) and presumably setting something up for next week. After some initial deep inhale acting (“inhale … my name’s Gwen … inhale … I’m hear to help … inhale … would you like a coffee?”) Eve Myles stepped away from the microphone slightly to deliver her dependably down to earth performance. Neither Barrowman or Gareth were given very much to do though the scene in the Torchwood Love Machine with the toy gun/remote control/Cardiff traffic management bothering device was sweetly played and surprisingly clean (even if the bike love did make me want to chew through the arms of my chair).

Tomorrow: The hitherto unmentioned Torchwood India. Oh.

[Torchwood: Asylum can be download here for the next week. If you're living in the UK.]

links for 2009-06-30

  • "Listen to Radio 4 and the country that emerges is witty and engaging, well-read if parochial, always up for a walk to the pub down the lane. Watch Channel 5 on TV and you see a nation obsessed with home repairs, footballers, and the Botoxed winners of Big Brother. Radio gave me the England I'd gotten to know reading Evelyn Waugh, and that I half-expected to find."

  • This must be what it looks inside the head of Nicholas Lyndhurst's character Gary on the sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart.

  • Many happy memories of watching the small round white blobs disappear into a blue backgrounds before 'How We Used To Live'.

the romance of the evening



Life There’s not much to do in the evening in Stratford if you’re free and single or if you’re in melancholic mood, alone. Actually, there were flyers all over the place for this music concert or that am-dram production with the odd thing on at the Civic Hall. Just not the week I was there. When I asked at the tourist information centre for some ideas, all they could suggest was a ghost tour though since that was being run by the people who also own what could be the very worst tourist attraction I’ve ever visited, Tudor World, (more on which another time) I was suspicious.

So on the evenings when I wasn’t seeing a performance, I still somehow managed to find myself at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The main venues are closed for refurbishment, but on Tuesday and Thursday after dinner, I sat on the grass nearby reading a book or listening to some Shakespeare on cd about as relaxed as I’ve been in years. One of my last experiences of Stratford was sitting in the shadow of The Swan listening to David Tennant read Shall I Compare Thee To Summer’s Day? and trying to work out what I’d need to do to move there and wistfully wondering how I could woo the girl with long flowing red who was passing by that I was certain must be an actress (not being David Tennant a definite handicap).

The other nights were something else entirely. The RSC have the monopoly on theatres but at present, the only auditorium open is The Courtyard, formerly The Other Place, a giant multi-level space patterned after The Globe (or if you’re local to me, the Everyman with balconies). My heart was pounding on the Monday as I walked the road up to the theatre for the first time, my hands quivered as I handed my bag into the cloakroom, I stuttered when asking to buy a programme. Walking into the auditorium, I caught the scent of the place, a fragrant mixture of paint and wood. “It smells like a theatre doesn’t it?” I said to usher. “That’s because it is a theatre.” He replied dryly, though I could tell he knew what I meant. I think.

Despite visiting the birthplace and other houses and where the man was buried, I only really became sentimental that night. I’ve idolised that theatre and its rolling companies for so many years that I couldn’t believe I was actually sharing their air, watching a performance by them and just ten hours after the leaving of Liverpool. During a rather fabulous song and dance number in the Bohemia section I was on the brink of tears. Isn’t that silly? I suspect I could have been watching any production of any play, and I still would have had a lump in my throat. Is this what happens when real Beatles fans step into the faux-Cavern for the first time?

The Winter’s Tale hasn’t previously been one of my favourite plays though I know that has had a lot to do with the assemblages I’ve had to endure, samples being the BBC tv version from the 1980s which looked to have been filmed on the set of a Blue Peter Christmas Special and featured some of the country’s very worst child actors and an all male production which also swapped the masculine/feminine assignments to provide some rather butch women and fey men. Director David Farr turns the opening half of the play, everything leading up to the abandonment of the child on the beach into a brooding noirish tragedy then sharply contrasts it with the jolly pastoral scene in the second half, like splicing Peter Brook’s Bermanesque film of King Lear with Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, with its lashings of hey-nonny-nonny.

My problem with Julie Bailey’s Julius Caesar is that she allows the multimedia backdrop, depicting locals and battles, to dominate the action so much that there’s not much space for the actors to develop their roles, which also means the opening hour drags horribly and only gains momentum with the murder of Caesar though that’s largely because the text forces it to accelerate. Sam Troughton’s Brutus has just the right measure of confused passion, but John Mackay’s Cassius is too understated; it’s a delicious character, the embodiment of the serpentine devil from Milton’s Paradise Lost but here he became a kind of Peter Mandelson figure but without the impression that the quiet man could be a complete bastard given half the chance. It goes without saying that Greg Hicks is amazing in both productions as men betrayed by a perception of who their friends really are.

But with the shadow of temporal distance I can tell it’s not a perfect place to see a play, which might have stoked my prejudices. The seats are very close together which means if you’re sitting next to a fidgeter as I was on the Monday, you’re perennially distracted by someone periodically tickling you. Even after I’d moved to somewhere else in the circle after the interval, I was stuck in a place which despite offering an amazing view of the land was also behind a prop ladder. On the Wednesday during Julius Caesar, the staging meant that if an actor stood in front of my ground level corner seat the entire rest of the stage was blocked, the show briefly turning into radio as you could only imagine what was happening behind Sam Troughton’s arse.

Acoustically it’s suspect too – often the surrounding talkers were more audible than the actors which wasn’t at all fun during Caesar when I found I’d also bought a seat in the middle of a coach party who clearly didn’t have too much of an interest in Shakespeare or the play and spent most of the show commenting on everything or passing wisecracks around during some of the more dramatic scenes. Example: in the climactic battle scenes, one of the characters, having been stabbed in the back, is clawing for life across the stage, dragging himself ever closer to the audience desperately looking for our help.

Idiot One: [Inaudable.]
Idiot Two sitting in front: WHAT?
Idiot One leaning forward: HE’S COMING TO GET YOU! HAA HAA HAA!
Idiot Two: YES! HAAHAAHAAHAA!

Meanwhile, the poor actor is clearly out of breath but trying not to show it. I’m sure I could see him looking balefully in our direction out of the corner of his eye.

And I still managed to have get wrench through my throat because of the proximity to the actors. That seat was also right next to the runways which largely brought the performers onto the stage from the foyer and often they’d hesitate before joining the main action, perhaps even kneeling and I can’t imagine how disconcerting it must be to have someone like me eyeballing them from just inches away, close enough for them to spit on me. In Empire Magazine a couple of months ago, Sam Mendes was asked if he’d consider using 3D cinema and he said he already had. It was called theatre. Now I can see what he meant. At the opening of the second half, the remains of a solider were parades on and our section were drenched in fake blood and I’m convinced I also had the liquid contents of half the cast on my top by the end of the evening too.

That’s one t-shirt I’ll not be washing soon.

Walking away that evening I was overtaken in the street by actress Noma Dumezweni who'd played Paulina in The Winter's Tale and Calphurnia in Julius Caesar and who my fan gene had identified as playing UNIT Captain Erisa Magambo in Doctor Who at Easter and had demonstrated here that she has rather more range than when she was simply barking orders at Lee Evans. She looked to be in determined mood and it took only a fraction of a second to decide to not to chase after her looking for an autograph. It seemed wrong, an invasion. Like it would spoil the mood. So I let her go, and simply let the romance of the evening envelop me, knowing that these had been some of the best evenings of my young life.

The Royal Shakespeare Company



There’s not much to do in the evening in Stratford if you’re free and single or if you’re in melancholic mood, alone. Actually, there were flyers all over the place for this music concert or that am-dram production with the odd thing on at the Civic Hall. Just not the week I was there. When I asked at the tourist information centre for some ideas, all they could suggest was a ghost tour though since that was being run by the people who also own what could be the very worst tourist attraction I’ve ever visited, Tudor World, (more on which another time) I was suspicious.

So on the evenings when I wasn’t seeing a performance, I still somehow managed to find myself at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The main venues are closed for refurbishment, but on Tuesday and Thursday after dinner, I sat on the grass nearby reading a book or listening to some Shakespeare on cd about as relaxed as I’ve been in years. One of my last experiences of Stratford was sitting in the shadow of The Swan listening to David Tennant read Shall I Compare Thee To Summer’s Day? and trying to work out what I’d need to do to move there and wistfully wondering how I could woo the girl with long flowing red who was passing by that I was certain must be an actress (not being David Tennant a definite handicap).

The other nights were something else entirely. The RSC have the monopoly on theatres but at present, the only auditorium open is The Courtyard, formerly The Other Place, a giant multi-level space patterned after The Globe (or if you’re local to me, the Everyman with balconies). My heart was pounding on the Monday as I walked the road up to the theatre for the first time, my hands quivered as I handed my bag into the cloakroom, I stuttered when asking to buy a programme. Walking into the auditorium, I caught the scent of the place, a fragrant mixture of paint and wood. “It smells like a theatre doesn’t it?” I said to usher. “That’s because it is a theatre.” He replied dryly, though I could tell he knew what I meant. I think.

Despite visiting the birthplace and other houses and where the man was buried, I only really became sentimental that night. I’ve idolised that theatre and its rolling companies for so many years that I couldn’t believe I was actually sharing their air, watching a performance by them and just ten hours after the leaving of Liverpool. During a rather fabulous song and dance number in the Bohemia section I was on the brink of tears. Isn’t that silly? I suspect I could have been watching any production of any play, and I still would have had a lump in my throat. Is this what happens when real Beatles fans step into the faux-Cavern for the first time?

The Winter’s Tale hasn’t previously been one of my favourite plays though I know that has had a lot to do with the assemblages I’ve had to endure, samples being the BBC tv version from the 1980s which looked to have been filmed on the set of a Blue Peter Christmas Special and featured some of the country’s very worst child actors and an all male production which also swapped the masculine/feminine assignments to provide some rather butch women and fey men. Director David Farr turns the opening half of the play, everything leading up to the abandonment of the child on the beach into a brooding noirish tragedy then sharply contrasts it with the jolly pastoral scene in the second half, like splicing Peter Brook’s Bermanesque film of King Lear with Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, with its lashings of hey-nonny-nonny.

My problem with Julie Bailey’s Julius Caesar is that she allows the multimedia backdrop, depicting locals and battles, to dominate the action so much that there’s not much space for the actors to develop their roles, which also means the opening hour drags horribly and only gains momentum with the murder of Caesar though that’s largely because the text forces it to accelerate. Sam Troughton’s Brutus has just the right measure of confused passion, but John Mackay’s Cassius is too understated; it’s a delicious character, the embodiment of the serpentine devil from Milton’s Paradise Lost but here he became a kind of Peter Mandelson figure but without the impression that the quiet man could be a complete bastard given half the chance. It goes without saying that Greg Hicks is amazing in both productions as men betrayed by a perception of who their friends really are.

But with the shadow of temporal distance I can tell it’s not a perfect place to see a play, which might have stoked my prejudices. The seats are very close together which means if you’re sitting next to a fidgeter as I was on the Monday, you’re perennially distracted by someone periodically tickling you. Even after I’d moved to somewhere else in the circle after the interval, I was stuck in a place which despite offering an amazing view of the land was also behind a prop ladder. On the Wednesday during Julius Caesar, the staging meant that if an actor stood in front of my ground level corner seat the entire rest of the stage was blocked, the show briefly turning into radio as you could only imagine what was happening behind Sam Troughton’s arse.

Acoustically it’s suspect too – often the surrounding talkers were more audible than the actors which wasn’t at all fun during Caesar when I found I’d also bought a seat in the middle of a coach party who clearly didn’t have too much of an interest in Shakespeare or the play and spent most of the show commenting on everything or passing wisecracks around during some of the more dramatic scenes. Example: in the climactic battle scenes, one of the characters, having been stabbed in the back, is clawing for life across the stage, dragging himself ever closer to the audience desperately looking for our help.

Idiot One: [Inaudable.]
Idiot Two sitting in front: WHAT?
Idiot One leaning forward: HE’S COMING TO GET YOU! HAA HAA HAA!
Idiot Two: YES! HAAHAAHAAHAA!

Meanwhile, the poor actor is clearly out of breath but trying not to show it. I’m sure I could see him looking balefully in our direction out of the corner of his eye.

And I still managed to have get wrench through my throat because of the proximity to the actors. That seat was also right next to the runways which largely brought the performers onto the stage from the foyer and often they’d hesitate before joining the main action, perhaps even kneeling and I can’t imagine how disconcerting it must be to have someone like me eyeballing them from just inches away, close enough for them to spit on me. In Empire Magazine a couple of months ago, Sam Mendes was asked if he’d consider using 3D cinema and he said he already had. It was called theatre. Now I can see what he meant. At the opening of the second half, the remains of a solider were parades on and our section were drenched in fake blood and I’m convinced I also had the liquid contents of half the cast on my top by the end of the evening too.

That’s one t-shirt I’ll not be washing soon.

Walking away that evening I was overtaken in the street by actress Noma Dumezweni who'd played Paulina in The Winter's Tale and Calphurnia in Julius Caesar and who my fan gene had identified as playing UNIT Captain Erisa Magambo in Doctor Who at Easter and had demonstrated here that she has rather more range than when she was simply barking orders at Lee Evans. She looked to be in determined mood and it took only a fraction of a second to decide to not to chase after her looking for an autograph. It seemed wrong, an invasion. Like it would spoil the mood. So I let her go, and simply let the romance of the evening envelop me, knowing that these had been some of the best evenings of my young life.

links for 2009-06-29

Shakespeare's Final Resting Place.



Shakespeare’s final resting place is at Holy Trinity Church on the banks of the Avon. You can’t help whispering as you enter and pay the couple of pounds to the small reception (card table with a plastic box) cannily erected half way up the naïve. There’s not very much to see – a nice church (which must be atmospheric at Christmas in the way that only churches like this can be), the memorial, of course, and then the tomb, which, because the bard was a lay preacher he was entitled to have added to the altar area. Most of his immediate family tree can be found here too, carefully labelled.

I chatted with the school masterly guide sat to the left, showing him an entry about the place from the Penguin miscellany which was my main reading material for the week (on account of the very short entries ready to fill in all kinds of still moments), which he gave 8/10 for factual correctness, then left just as a visiting school group, camera phones cocked, swamped the area. In the graveyard I sat writing out a postcard. It (I) said, “It’s quite unsettling to visit where a person was born, see some of their life’s work that evening, then the place they were buried the following afternoon.” I can't imagine there are many world figures with whom this is possible.

the school masterly guide



Life Shakespeare’s final resting place is at Holy Trinity Church on the banks of the Avon. You can’t help whispering as you enter and pay the couple of pounds to the small reception (card table with a plastic box) cannily erected half way up the naïve. There’s not very much to see – a nice church (which must be atmospheric at Christmas in the way that only churches like this can be), the memorial, of course, and then the tomb, which, because the bard was a lay preacher he was entitled to have added to the altar area. Most of his immediate family tree can be found here too, carefully labelled.

I chatted with the school masterly guide sat to the left, showing him an entry about the place from the Penguin miscellany which was my main reading material for the week (on account of the very short entries ready to fill in all kinds of still moments), which he gave 8/10 for factual correctness, then left just as a visiting school group, camera phones cocked, swamped the area. In the graveyard I sat writing out a postcard. It (I) said, “It’s quite unsettling to visit where a person was born, see some of their life’s work that evening, then the place they were buried the following afternoon.” I can't imagine there are many world figures with whom this is possible.

links for 2009-06-28

The Spotify Playlist



Perfect Day

Originally created as a promo for the BBC and what we pay for them to do and later released as a charity record for Children in Need, it's probably the most eclectic of these various artist 'collaborations' encompassing performers from a range of styles and genres and about the only place you'll find Leslie Garrett, Brett Anderson and Laurie Anderson sharing the same four minutes (and paid just £250 each for the privileged). The resulting compilation is a riot, especially since I chose the most played track for each of the performers, resulting in the Dr John choice being Cruella De Vil and O Superman butting up against It's Not Unusual.

http://open.spotify.com/user/feelinglistless/playlist/35qCx42vx9uFtaymZ4pL4c

Shakespeare's Houses



In 1759, Reverend Francis Gastrell, the final owner/occupier of Shakespeare’s retirement home, New Place, was so incensed by the constant stream of tourists pitching up at his house and invading his lawn that he knocked out all the windows and chopped down the mulberry tree that had reputedly been planted in the garden by the bard. Then when the local council demanded Land Taxes, he furiously demolished the house itself, its ruins still rotting as he was run out of town by his bloodthirsty compatriots and banished from returning to Stratford for the rest of his life. Now, all that remains of the place where Shakespeare died are the stone foundations and a rather nice lawn, accessible from his son-in-laws property next door (see above).

Lord knows what Gastrell would make of the tourism which exists in his town now; it’s apparently the second biggest destination in the country behind London, its population of 23,000 probably doubling (tripling?) during the peak season. It’s not something the Shakespeare Trust shy away from; throughout their properties there’s a twin story, not just of his life and period but also of the people who’ve paid homage to him since; in places they highlight the other great thinkers who’ve also taken the same steps you have around the houses – in the birthplace they’ve even preserved one of the bay windows in which visitors famous and not so have left their mark or autograph. Which meant that though I was travelling alone, I didn’t often feel it, since I was part of a tradition stretching back centuries.

This wasn’t the first time I’d visited the birthplace; the last time was in the early nineties when I was studying the plays at school and it seemed the thing to do. Then, I’d characterised the experience as ‘disappointing’ (for reason I forget). Not so now. Having spent the intervening years becoming a proper fan of Shakespeare and discovering the plays and his life it was quite overwhelming to be standing in that place again, even if as the demonstrator described the method of his birth, her words were being translated into Japanese for some of the other visitors, the surprise of one half of the room to the news that the phrase ‘Night night, sleep tight’ referred to the way that Elizabethan babies were tucked in at night on a rope frame underneath the marital bed, repeated minutes later by the other half.

So I was rarely alone in these places, especially on Monday and Tuesday when the town was saturated by delegates from the 100th International Rotary Conference in Birmingham, all wearing a little white badge with their first name and country of origin on them. But just now and then, within a lull, by taking things slowly against the crowd, I’d find myself in an empty room and could briefly imagine what it must have been like to live that superficially simpler life. All five houses are to some extent frozen in time or recreations of a period in their history selected because of the association with Shakespeare, attempts to provide a context for students of history and literature and they work best when you can hesitate at a kitchen utensil or piece of furniture and think about how different the person using them must have been and whether you’re much of an improvement.

The demonstrators are the key element which brings these places alive. Some are simply tour guides offering a bit of background to the house and why it’s an important part of the story. Others, dressed in period costume, balance precariously between that and full blown improvisation. At Arden’s Farm, a group of roleplayers prepare a meal across the day and then sit and eat it to show what the process of living in the house was somewhat like. I spent ages in that kitchen talking to the cook about everything from the health awarness of Elizabethans to the preparation of nettles and why we don’t eat them as much these days, the information flowing from her lips as she shimmered in and out of character by the pronoun, like a Doctor Who actor appearing on Blue Peter being asked to break character by Simon Groom.

Just as interesting, at the birthplace, in the gardens at the back and the street in front, actor work through extracts from the plays, girly arguments from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Nurses advise to Juliet and according to the poster Hamlet soliloquy’s, all of them completely in character as though we’re witnessing the fraction of a production. Fighting to be heard against tourists chatting about cameras and children poking fun at their costume, they’re absolutely fearless and a rather more visceral way of reminding the visitor why they’re taking the time to walk about this house in particular than the introductory display in which a voiceover from Juliet Stevenson and Patrick Stewart tell us that we’re looking at the actually desk that Shakespeare may have learnt the classics from or the actual book, or actual etc.

My favourite was probably Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. It’s the most complete dwelling, the only one in which all of the rooms are given over to showing living rooms (all of the others including an exhibition space of one sort or another breaking the illusion), and the most romantic since it’s presumed to be the place were young William wooed his future wife, perhaps inspiring dozens of similar romances in his plays. Without a car or coach, the only approach seems to be a walk from the parish centre through a series of alleyways cutting across suburbia then a field and into the village of Shottery of which it is but one of a multitude of thatched buildings (which did mean I misidentified the odd building before finally happening upon what was obviously the tourist attraction). One of the moments of perfect calm I experienced during the week was sitting in the garden outside the house, listening to the birds and looking up past the roof towards a deep blue sky. I need to have more of those.

one of the moments of perfect calm



Life In 1759, Reverend Francis Gastrell, the final owner/occupier of Shakespeare’s retirement home, New Place, was so incensed by the constant stream of tourists pitching up at his house and invading his lawn that he knocked out all the windows and chopped down the mulberry tree that had reputedly been planted in the garden by the bard. Then when the local council demanded Land Taxes, he furiously demolished the house itself, its ruins still rotting as he was run out of town by his bloodthirsty compatriots and banished from returning to Stratford for the rest of his life. Now, all that remains of the place where Shakespeare died are the stone foundations and a rather nice lawn, accessible from his son-in-laws property next door (see above).

Lord knows what Gastrell would make of the tourism which exists in his town now; it’s apparently the second biggest destination in the country behind London, its population of 23,000 probably doubling (tripling?) during the peak season. It’s not something the Shakespeare Trust shy away from; throughout their properties there’s a twin story, not just of his life and period but also of the people who’ve paid homage to him since; in places they highlight the other great thinkers who’ve also taken the same steps you have around the houses – in the birthplace they’ve even preserved one of the bay windows in which visitors famous and not so have left their mark or autograph. Which meant that though I was travelling alone, I didn’t often feel it, since I was part of a tradition stretching back centuries.

This wasn’t the first time I’d visited the birthplace; the last time was in the early nineties when I was studying the plays at school and it seemed the thing to do. Then, I’d characterised the experience as ‘disappointing’ (for reason I forget). Not so now. Having spent the intervening years becoming a proper fan of Shakespeare and discovering the plays and his life it was quite overwhelming to be standing in that place again, even if as the demonstrator described the method of his birth, her words were being translated into Japanese for some of the other visitors, the surprise of one half of the room to the news that the phrase ‘Night night, sleep tight’ referred to the way that Elizabethan babies were tucked in at night on a rope frame underneath the marital bed, repeated minutes later by the other half.

So I was rarely alone in these places, especially on Monday and Tuesday when the town was saturated by delegates from the 100th International Rotary Conference in Birmingham, all wearing a little white badge with their first name and country of origin on them. But just now and then, within a lull, by taking things slowly against the crowd, I’d find myself in an empty room and could briefly imagine what it must have been like to live that superficially simpler life. All five houses are to some extent frozen in time or recreations of a period in their history selected because of the association with Shakespeare, attempts to provide a context for students of history and literature and they work best when you can hesitate at a kitchen utensil or piece of furniture and think about how different the person using them must have been and whether you’re much of an improvement.

The demonstrators are the key element which brings these places alive. Some are simply tour guides offering a bit of background to the house and why it’s an important part of the story. Others, dressed in period costume, balance precariously between that and full blown improvisation. At Arden’s Farm, a group of roleplayers prepare a meal across the day and then sit and eat it to show what the process of living in the house was somewhat like. I spent ages in that kitchen talking to the cook about everything from the health awarness of Elizabethans to the preparation of nettles and why we don’t eat them as much these days, the information flowing from her lips as she shimmered in and out of character by the pronoun, like a Doctor Who actor appearing on Blue Peter being asked to break character by Simon Groom.

Just as interesting, at the birthplace, in the gardens at the back and the street in front, actor work through extracts from the plays, girly arguments from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Nurses advise to Juliet and according to the poster Hamlet soliloquy’s, all of them completely in character as though we’re witnessing the fraction of a production. Fighting to be heard against tourists chatting about cameras and children poking fun at their costume, they’re absolutely fearless and a rather more visceral way of reminding the visitor why they’re taking the time to walk about this house in particular than the introductory display in which a voiceover from Juliet Stevenson and Patrick Stewart tell us that we’re looking at the actually desk that Shakespeare may have learnt the classics from or the actual book, or actual etc.

My favourite was probably Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. It’s the most complete dwelling, the only one in which all of the rooms are given over to showing living rooms (all of the others including an exhibition space of one sort or another breaking the illusion), and the most romantic since it’s presumed to be the place were young William wooed his future wife, perhaps inspiring dozens of similar romances in his plays. Without a car or coach, the only approach seems to be a walk from the parish centre through a series of alleyways cutting across suburbia then a field and into the village of Shottery of which it is but one of a multitude of thatched buildings (which did mean I misidentified the odd building before finally happening upon what was obviously the tourist attraction). One of the moments of perfect calm I experienced during the week was sitting in the garden outside the house, listening to the birds and looking up past the roof towards a deep blue sky. I need to have more of those.

links for 2009-06-27

  • Lo the Transformers fans looked at their Trekker cousins with envious eyes and wonder how the screenwriters who created the act of love that was Star Trek could also piss all over their childhoods. Sample of this amazing FAQ: "Can you explain Megan Fox's appeal? Yes. She looks like a porn star and has the same acting talent as one, yet for some reason she makes mainstream movies. This tonal disconnect is what's so appealing about her."

  • Many congratulations Neil and Palma. Makes my arduous walk to Anne Hathaway's Cottage look a bit puny. Incidentally, is that really Werner Herzog?

  • Reminds me of the closing moments of ITV Digital and watching Carlton Cinema going dark. Except that simply consisted of the picture going off in the middle of a film.

  • Which you have of course already seen in my absence. Just wanted to note how shonky the Twilight material looks in comparison to the Buffy footage.

  • It's not just about the gesture, it's also the picture they chose ...