Shakespearean Summer

I watched two Shakespeare plays in two days; there was a lot of blood!

King Lear – National Theatre - £5

Classic case of a king trying to divide his kingdom amongst heirs without causing World War III. Surprisingly all his heirs are women and the process drives him crazy. Lear is a long-old play, the first half alone is a hefty two hours complete with barbarism, butchery, and in this case, a full-sized deer carcass! King Lear considers issues of nature vs nurture, the all-consuming nature of power and the barbarous lengths people will go to in order to secure it.

Mendes has truly lent his Bond-style influence to Shakespeare’s text;  Lear’s retinue in monochrome berets and boots with every pocket knife was bloodied, and the women don’t go halves on the lace, or the butt kicking other. The staging as ever with the NT was imaginative and excellently executed complete with revolving staging, moving panels, AV and the mandatory trap door.  But the credit here really must go to the actors who  were very good; I’ve never seen King Lear nor read the play but they made it come alive in a real way that I could follow. There were several famous names in there, Adrian Scarborough is a witty fool and its pleasing to see Anna Maxwell Martin escape her Jane Austin costume and become this wild, powerful heiress.

I really enjoyed King Lear, although there's more violence and nudity than an average episode of Game of Thrones and is a mammoth 3-hours long (the first 2 of which take place without pause or break!). 

(Photo credit: Upstate Films)

Antony and Cleopatra - The Globe - £15

Two world-leaders fall in love, what really reigns love or power? The play charts Antony's rise and fall in a strongly poetic style. Antony and Cleopatra will be your jam if you like innuendo, artistic depictions of warfare, suicide involving snakes. Having studied this play at school I at least knew what we going on, but my sister had to come to me for minute long synopses at the end of each scene.

(Clive Wood and Eve Best. Photo credit: The Guardian)

The joy of watching Shakespeare at the Globe is that sense of watching Shakespeare in its authentic style. As we arrived incense was pouring out, suffocating all the standing audience. We gratefully took our seats to one side of the stage on our rented cushions. On top of the incense there was plenty of impressive acrobatics and simple set changes that were very effective. My favourite part of the play was just before the interval when Antony and Cleopatra leave the auditorium in splendour. Something as simple as gold confetti created this amazing, glorious effect. The other great pleasure of this style of theatre is it allows the actors to be responsive to their environment. Eve Best (Cleopatra) did this really well, pausing before starting her big speech to allow planes to pass overhead, kissing an audience member on the lips when he played along. These little additions really knit the audience into the story and help you feel you have witnessed something unique.

Antony and Cleopatra was great, I think the lovely sunshine definitely helped, and the aeroplanes and pigeons stopped short of ruining the performance. My only criticisms would be the long political conversations between magnates were a little stagnant and tricky to follow. For a play in the Elizabethan style it was good. Fork out for a seat! It would be pretty long stood up!

The Kingmaker's Daughter

Although I frequently complain about it my daily commute regularly affords me a little luxury; two hours daily to indulge in a little entertainment.

As usual I've had several books on the go but have just finished 'The Kingmaker's Daughter' by Philippa Gregory. Gregory writes historical fiction and TKD is her latest offering in the Cousin's War series. I encountered her totally by accident during a visit to Hampton Court last Easter when I accidentally picked up a copy of 'The Other Boleyn Girl'.

TKD is the story of Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Earl of Warwick and wife of that Richard with the supposedly hunched back (you know the one that was 'found' in the car park!). I didn't know that when I started reading, not wanting to know the ending I refused the offer of a family tree. History is famously without 'herstory' and so I have enjoyed Gregory's stories learning more about English history, secure in the knowledge that she is both a good storyteller and also an accurate historian.


'I thought it was all about beautiful dresses and handsome knights. Now I see that it is pitiless. It is a game of chess and Father has me as one of his pieces'. 
Gregory echoes this commitment to 'herstory' by always presenting the female perspective and this time it is Anne Neville's. When we first meet Anne she's just a girl, not yet a teenager but already her father's pawn; In awe of court and her big sister, but also with a wise head on her shoulders. As she grows she becomes more calculating, delivers her sister's baby in a gory birth at sea, marries an enemy or two and tries to work out whether she can ever be at home beyond the shores of Calais.


'We have lost so much but we are still sisters. Let's be friends again. I want to live in sisterhood with you'
Two themes came across really strongly to me whilst reading TKD, sisterhood and the circle of life. And so to sisterhood. Sisters are really important. I knew that already but this book really brought that home. Anne looks up to her big sister Isabel as she sees all of life first; even when Isabel is cruel Anne is adoring. The strength of their bond is contrasted by the relationships between the three brothers of the House of York who can be quick to turn on oneanother. Other women in the book also show really strong sisterly bonds, Elizabeth Woodville's daughters look after oneanother and their brothers when they are orphaned; Margaret of Anjou and Jaquetta of Luxembourg, though their husbands were bitter enemies are portrayed here as friends. Although mothers display great strength especially when guarding their son's kingship women are generally portrayed as the peace makers, able to avoid the politics of court.


'fresh princes spring up like weeds on a crop'
Throughout the book there is reference to the turn of the wheel as a sign passed between generations of women. Throughout time women (and men!) may rise to power but with one turn of the wheel she may also decline to the humble roots she came from. Gregory was writing about a time of great turmoil in what she calls 'The Cousins War' and what would become known as the Wars of the Roses there was much instability at the top of the royal tree. There were plenty of young Plantagenet men and there were ceaseless battles for pole position. Such turmoil eventually led to the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower and the vilification of Richard III. (On that point, interesting the timing of this book, with a kind gentle Richard, and the 'discovery')


The book really interested me because I've never really thought about royal houses between William (whom some call 'Conqueror') and Henry VIII. Gregory offers a gateway to history with a human face; making dusty historical figures come alive with interest. I'm keen to see what she will do with Anne Neville's rival, Lady Elizabeth Grey, 'The White Princess'.

Shakespeare and Plan B - liminal artists and easy bedfellows?

Over the last couple of weeks I have been considering the role of artists (verbal, musical, theatrical, sculptural etc.) in society and specifically their ability to criticise politics.

Traditionally artists were kept on the edge of society, as travelling minstrels at Medieval courts or Elizabethan theatre players, or secluded artists, like Picasso, they formed micro-communities with their own social rules. They are citizens of their own countries but they are also uniquely placed to comment on society, as quasi-strangers in their own lands.

Throughout time the Arts have had this function, in Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare comments on Elizabethan social reform resound throughout Romeo and Juliet, where the Prince proclaims new rules and the protagonists fall foul of a system that cannot understand,  ‘What, ho! you men, you beasts/That quench the fire of your pernicious rage/ With purple fountains issuing from your veins’. In Hamlet Shakespeare similarly puts up a mirror to the Jacobean approach to monarchy (The King and the Playwright).The ability to critique contemporary government and society did not end with Shakespeare, at the Queen’s Jubilee arts evening Hockney said, ‘I don’t think we can quite rely on governments to see the bigger picture so we need the Arts’. Interesting that the Arts can say things that politicians or people in other contexts can’t.

The social commentary in Romeo and Juliet (when the men are brawling on the street) came to mind recently when I was listening to Plan B’s ‘ill Manors’. Music has long been the refuge for protest music; the Sex Pistols released the controversial  ‘God Save the Queen’ in the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Plan B uses his song to critique the current government’s policies impact on the poor to widespread acclaim. Showing the foolishness of Cameron’s hug a hoody, ‘He’s got a hoodie on give him a hug...on second thoughts you don’t want to get mugged’, the Olympics, how the poor can take advantage of the benefits system and accuses Boris of ‘rob(bing) them (Londoners) blind’. He can be quite clever with his wordplay, ‘We’ve got an eco-friendly government; they like to preserve our natural habitat’. His song can be summed up in his satirical play on the Conservative statement, ‘There’s no such thing as broken Britain, we’re all bloody broke in Britain’. These statements would be very weighty coming from the mouths of the protester but somehow from the mouth of a pop singer it encounters no such censorship. It has been played on all the major music channels and has been bought as a pop song by thousands, entering the UK charts at number 6. What is so special about the medium of song that makes that kind of commentary acceptable? (you can watch the video here)

Like Shakespeare, Plan B walks an interesting line here. Plan B samples Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, which just sounds like ‘classical music’, getting into bed with Conservative values, but the classical piece was created as a reaction to Nazi militarism, what does that suggest? Shakespeare counted the royals amongst his patrons but what does his generous portrayal of Henry VIII say to a Stuart court? And is Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part I an attempt to boost patriotism or a stern critique of it, just as England is fighting off the Spanish Armada?

What do you think the role of the ‘artist’ is in society? Do they even have a place? I’d be interested to know your thoughts.