Bradford City of Film

 Bradford has a long connection with filmmaking; indeed it was the first UNESCO City of Film in the world. And of course the very first moving pictures ever were taken next door in Leeds. So lots of films have been made in this part of the world. I previously mentioned 'Ilkley: the movie', which was eventually released as 'Say Your Prayers'. Now, I have never seen it, and nor do I know anyone who has, from which I think we can deduce both that it had a very limited release and that it's rubbish. However, given the chance I would watch it because, you know, it's local.

In the meantime I have been to see 'Ali & Ava', also shot in Bradford, but this time in the inner city. It's a nice, warm-hearted watch with all the conflict and difficulties resolving themselves, mostly off camera and in ways not clearly explained. I did enjoy it though, and the physical Bradford shown in it is very much the real Bradford. For those who don't know the city it is perched on hills surrounding a central valley (*) and most views are across the centre to another piece of high ground, and that's faithfully reproduced here. In case anyone wonders about the sudden appearance  of an opulent bookshop among shots of gritty terraces and segregated housing estates, that's the Waterstones in the Wool Exchange, which is a lovely building. Wool of course was once the source of the city's wealth. 

I bet Heathcliffe and Cathy didn't go to Keighley first

Your bloggist is slowing down in his old age and therefore my companion was the same person that I went to see Belfast with recently. This new film contained such a glaring public transport solecism that I turned to her at the end expecting a tirade of "that would never happen". But with the contrariness of her sex, she shrugged her shoulders and said that she couldn't see anything wrong with it. So, it is left to me to point out that if one lived in central Bradford and wanted to go to Haworth for the weekend then one would just go there and not first head off in a different direction, stop at Keighley station and get on the KWVR. 

Not the National Gallery

And, while we're on the subject of public transport, like the proverbial bus a second film shot in Bradford has appeared immediately after the first one. 'The Duke' (**) is mostly set in Newcastle, but the terraced houses seen in the film are in Bradford and the scenes purporting to be the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square were actually shot in Cartwright Hall in Lister Park (***).  I recommend the film, which is very entertaining, and there are excellent performances from Helen Mirren and especially Jim Broadbent, although they're both a decade too old for the roles they play. I said in yesterday's post about Macbeth that great acting doesn't require speech and Mirren proves that again. She manages to express her disapproval of her husband's behaviour simply by the way she knits. As H.L. Mencken astutely observed: "A man may be a fool and not know it; but not if he is married". The annoying error in 'The Duke' is class related rather than anything to do with transport. Helen Mirren lays the table for tea (and that is correct: tea not dinner) and puts the dessert spoon to the right of the knife. Wrong! In a working class home of the early sixties the spoon would have been placed across the top. Don't they do any research?

* The football ground is called Valley Parade for a reason. Unusually for this part of the world there is no river at the bottom of the valley. The road that runs along it is called Canal Road, but there's no canal either. 

** This actually has a couple of tenuous wargaming connections, one of which is that the Duke in question is Wellington.

*** I was there a couple of weeks ago to see 'Island to Island', an exhibition of photographs of the West Indies. If you're in the area I recommend both it and the vegan chocolate cake in the café. 

I Don't Want To Know About Evil

 I saw more films in January than I saw in the whole of last year. Among them was 'Belfast', which I really enjoyed. My companion for the evening took a different view, complaining of a lack of realism. She even donned a metaphorical anorak and question the accuracy of the way that the buses were portrayed; for the record, I have no reason to believe that she has any particular knowledge of public transport in the Northern Ireland of the 1960s. For me the fact that the film was a view through the eyes of a nine year old meant that one wasn't meant to take certain things entirely literally: the unfeasible good looks of the parents; that a miscast Dame Judi Dench is at least a generation too old for the part; and, OK fair enough, the unlikelihood of the airport bus leaving from the end of their street (*). I also felt that the music of the genius that is Van Morrison added greatly, whereas she felt unable to look beyond the pandemic having led to him completing his journey from curmudgeon to dickhead. 

This dichotomy between the teller and the tale also came up when I recently saw Sarah Jane Morris in concert, as in the first set she concentrated on the songs of John Martyn. Martyn was a sublime practitioner of jazz tinged singer-songwriting; he was also an alcoholic drug-user well known for inflicting physical and mental cruelty, especially against the women in his life. Morris didn't avoid that aspect - she is personally close to some of Martyn's surviving family -  but chose to focus on interpretation of his soulful, and often sad, lyrics.

She was backed by distinguished guitarist Tony Rémy (who has played with Herbie Hancock and Jack Bruce amongst others) and, to my surprise, the wonderful Marcus Bonfanti. I've only come across him before in a blues context - he is a member of the current incarnation of Ten Years After - but he demonstrated that he has the jazz chops as well. In the second set they played a wider variety of music including fine covers of 'Imagine' and 'I Shall Be Released'. The song I think I enjoyed most was 'Piece of My Heart'. Mostly associated these days with Janis Joplin, it was first offered by Bert Berns (who co wrote it with Jerry Ragovoy) to Van Morrison, Berns being Morrison's producer at the time. Morrison declined it, probably grumpily; dickhead. 

Not at all grumpy was Sarah Jane Morris, whose between song monologues about acts she had worked with, activism, and karma added much to the gig,  which I very much enjoyed. In case you are wondering where you have heard that name and voice before, it was her that duetted with Jimmy Somerville on the Communards' 'Don't Leave Me This Way'. Here they are, lip-synching creatively:

Great hat.

* Although, as it happens, in real life the airport bus leaves from directly outside my front door.

Valeria Messalina

 I have in the past compared the goings on at 10 Downing Street with scenes from 'I, Claudius' (see here and here). I am going to do it again.

Messalina was Claudius' empress and he was ignorant of, or turned a blind eye to, her ruthless ambition, rampant promiscuity and the fact that her selfish political machinations had caused the deaths of many innocent people. Eventually her faults became so obvious that the Praetorian Guard were sent to instruct her to commit suicide. She couldn't summon the courage and so in the end they did it for her (*).

The bumbling Claudius, elevated far above the level for which his talents and competence befitted him, is represented in this analogy by the Conservative Parliamentary Party. 

* Sorry about the lack of spoiler alert, but if you watch the 1976 BBC series - which you certainly should - then it's best not to get too attached to any of the characters.

PotCpouri

Indeed it has, Dame Helen. Still, we have to keep on keeping on. This week's Royal Armouries lecture was a bit of a curate's egg; I learned more from the Q&A than from the presentation bit. The presenter didn't help himself by taking the time to debunk various myths about plug bayonets that can't have occurred to many people in the first place. He did, however, address one issue that had puzzled me, namely how one removed a plug bayonet from the musket without cutting one's hand. Apparently the answer is that you rarely can. Interesting fact of the week was that the plug bayonet wasn't developed so much in imitation of the pike as it was as a convenient way of sticking wild boar; and the name does indeed come from Bayonne.

While I'm talking about online talks, let me draw your attention to this one, in which the 12th Duke of Northumberland is going to speak about 1,000 years of the Percy family at Alnwick Castle, a period which ought to contain something of interest. The picture below reflects slightly less than a millennium of the Epictetus family at Alnwick Castle. The one in the middle is the elder Miss Epictetus; I don't know who the other two are.

And finally, this is rather nice, and it's in a good cause:

Britannia AD 43

 So, the fact that the world won't stand still is restricting my ability to indulge in those few things that remain legal in Leeds, sitting all alone at home painting figures for example, but oddly enough I can read books without any problem (computer screens are more difficult) and I have been looking through a recently published book in the Osprey Campaign series: 'Britannia AD 43: The Claudian Invasion' by Nic Fields.

I hope I'm not damning with faint praise when I say it's OK. Two obvious problems that the author has are a lack of sources plus the significant changes in the geography of both the Kent coast and the course of the rivers Medway and Thames during the intervening two millennia. He copes with both as well as could be expected, although he does tend to repeat himself a tad. It's copiously illustrated with both paintings (by Steve Noon) and photographs of subjects ranging across museum exhibits, re-enactors, Roman remains from well after the invasion, much later buildings which happen to be where something may or may not have happened at the time etc. One of the photo credits is given to Neddy Seagoon, so one can't complain that the publishers have not looked in every possible place that they could think of.

Everyone will come to the book with a different level of prior knowledge, and most will be greater than mine. When Fields says that many people's impression of Claudius himself comes from Robert Graves via Derek Jacobi, he might have been describing me. Personally, I found the description of the difference between the alae and the cohortes equitatae to be very helpful, although I can't imagine it will make any difference to how I classify my Roman cavalry in 'To the Stongest!'. Also interesting was the contrast between the tribesman using local knowledge to finding their way through estuary marshes and the Batavian auxiliaries' ability to swim across rivers and move directly into combat. The text further prodded me towards thinking that the way chariot rules work in 'Infamy, Infamy' is more likely to reflect how they were used than those in TtS!; still, the latter shouldn't be hard to change. Lastly, but by no means least, I am very tempted to model (when vestibular stability has been restored) the illustration of Claudius parading towards Colchester on an elephant. And why not?

Still remembered

Lucius Aelius Sejanus

If any of the players in the current shenanigans had any knowledge of the classics, they may have been considering what, if any, lessons could be learned from the story of Sejanus.

In the 1976 BBC production of Robert Graves 'I, Claudius' - which I recommend most highly - Sejanus was played by the wonderful Patrick Stewart. I confess that I have been staring at the above photo for a while trying to work out if that's a wig or whether Captain Picard did at one point have blonde, curly hair.

Baldness hasn't done Stewart any harm though, as he is married to the somewhat younger Sunny Ozell. Here's a song of hers that might also have a message for the PM. It's called 'Git Gone':

My name is Jeeves, Reginald Jeeves

The comment by nundanket (I have never been sure why there is no capital letter in that name) about Fry and Laurie being the definitive Jeeves and Wooster raises a couple of questions in my mind.

The first is that as this list appears to be getting longer, do we have any rules as to what qualifications character and actor need in order to be on it. I would suggest the following:

• The original character needs to have appeared in a book or books which have subsequently been adapted for radio, television or film.
• Several different adaptations need to have been made featuring different actors in the role.
• One actor needs to stand out from the others to such an extent that when one reads the original literary work it is that actor whom one sees in ones mind's eye.

So, even though he clearly qualifies for the last point no one would claim that Ian McKellen is the definitive Gandalf, because let's be honest he's the only Gandalf; ditto Daniel Radcliffe et al. Colin Firth might well make the list as Mr Darcy, as we all know there have been many adaptations even if we don't know who was in them, but I'm going to disallow Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. I also won't include any of the Bonds, James Bonds because even if one has a favourite (Sean Connery obviously) the books and films are so different that visualising actor from printed page isn't by any means automatic.

That issue - congruence between book and adaptation - was raised by David Suchet when he spoke about being offered the role of Poirot in the first place. After mentioning that his brother advised him not to touch it with a barge pole, he said that his own reaction was that although it had been interpreted many times before (and rather bizarrely Suchet once played Inspector Japp to Peter Ustinov's Poirot) no one had ever really portrayed the Belgian detective as Agatha Christie wrote him; and so that's what he set out to do. Indeed it was that which caused him to decline to appear in dramatisations of those Poirot novels commissioned in the last few years by Christie's estate and written by Sophie Hannah. 

What Fry and Laurie's Jeeves and Wooster shares with Suchet's Poirot, Brett's Holmes etc is fidelity to the character even when the transfer to a different medium requires the plot to be messed about somewhat. So do I concur with nundanket's view that they are also definitive? No, and the reason is because I am so very old. I have fond memories of listening to the 1970's Radio 4 dramatisations featuring Richard Briars and Sir Michael Horden and so, despite Fry having been a much more appropriate age to have played Jeeves than Horden, it is Horden's voice I hear when I read P.G. Wodehouse.

And being as old as I am, the black and white television Wooster of my youth was Ian Carmichael (with Dennis Price as Jeeves), which reminds me of another entry for my list: Ian Carmichael is the definitive Lord Peter Wimsey.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

"We have a scourge upon our land. Tis a woman with a crown." - John Knox

That quote obviously comes from the film 'Mary Queen of Scots' (spoken by David Tennant  unrecognisable behind a hugely impressive beard) rather than being historical fact; indeed any relationship between the film and what actually happened would appear to be accidental. The geography wasn't any better either: the scene labelled 'The Border' was clearly nowhere of the kind and they rather traduced Carlisle, which is a perfectly pleasant place, but was made to look like an outpost of Mordor. In fact visually the whole film was reminiscent of 'Lord of the Rings', although I would of course be the last person to draw any parallels between Orcs and Scotsmen. It was all enjoyable enough though and contained some fine acting as did all the films I'm going to mention.

"Looks like deep fried Mars bars are back on the menu boys."

Despite her own end being not exactly what she would have wished for, it was Mary's descendants rather than Elizabeth's who went on to reign over both England and Scotland. Queen Anne was, I think, her great-granddaughter and 'The Favourite' addresses aspects of the life of the last of the Stuart dynasty with what appears to be a similarly cavalier attitude to accuracy. It is a much better film though, despite the strange ending. Any film whose credits include 'Nude Pomegranate Tory' and 'Fastest Duck in the City' is going to be OK with me.

Boris Johnson

'All is True', which takes us back to the reign of Mary's son, is rather downbeat, melancholy even. Judi Dench is far too old to play Anne Hathaway opposite Kenneth Branagh, and whole chunks of it make no sense at all, with entire subplots disappearing left right and centre. It is however rescued by the acting especially Sir Ian McKellen. To hear him and Branagh each recite Sonnet 29 in very different ways is worth your time and money on its own.

"Fly you fools!"

I have also seen 'Colette' which, being set in 19th century France, has nothing to do with the Stuarts, but does feature a strong female character who has to put up with a lot of crap from the man in her life. She takes a leaf out of Queen Anne's book (specifically the version of it as portrayed in the film), replaces him with a woman or two and seems to be all the happier for it. And, last but not least, the film that I have seen this year which I would recommend the most is 'Stan & Ollie', a lovely paean to friendship. If the pair's final show together doesn't bring a tear to your eye then you have no soul.

"That's another fine mess you've gotten us into."

Meantime we shall express our darker purpose

A while ago I saw a broadcast of Sir Ian McKellen's recent 'King Lear'. It was, of course, superb (Sinéad Cusack played a female Kent - I know you like to hear about the cross gender casting), but it was also very long. It started at 7 o'clock and the interval was at ten past nine. A fair number of punters never made it back afterwards. I stuck it out on the basis that if he could do it on stage at his age then I could certainly do it in the audience at mine. The reason for mentioning all this is not to dwell on my numb bum, but because I feel that it behoves me to pass comment on the current omnishambles of a government that we have here in the UK. I find I can do no better than quote Gloucester speaking in that play: "Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the blind".

It has seemed apparent to me for some time that we are living through is actually a worked example of the Condorcet Paradox. My recent viewing of 'Twelve Angry Men' obviously brought to mind Condorcet's Jury Theorem, and so I sought out a cheap second hand copy of Szpiro's 'Numbers Rule' an interesting book dealing with the mathematics of democracy. I have to confess that I hadn't previously recognised that the balloting system used by the Richard III Society to allocate tickets for the re-internment of a somewhat later lord of Gloucester in Leicester Cathedral - a process which you will recall left me without an invitation - looked suspiciously like one described by Plato in his 'Laws'; yet another reason to dislike the man.

Let's finish with a qualitative rather than quantitative take on democracy: 

"The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience." - W.E.B. Du Bois

We shall see.

Still still here

I have been reading and/or re-reading the Smiley novels in order. I have just finished 'The Honourable Schoolboy', and what a bloated pile of old tosh it is. However, the purpose of the post is not literary criticism, however concise and erudite, but to highlight a case of life imitating art.

Your bloggist poses in his special accounting hat

In the books Smiley is often (surprisingly often in fact) summoned from a quiet retirement pursuing his hobbies in order to shed light on something from the past that only he will remember. Your bloggist has likewise been torn away from his painting table (*) to advise a former client on something from a while ago that everyone, including him, has completely forgotten (**). It has been a complete shock to the system I can tell you, and has rather got in the way of posting here. On the plus side the unexpected income is burning a hole in my pocket in a way that can only possibly be satisfied by buying some new toys for the tabletop.


* This is merely a literary conceit; obviously no painting was actually taking place

** In one small change to events in literature, rather than going to the Aberdeen in Hong Kong I have been to the one in North-West Scotland; just as vibrant and colourful, but with more kilts.

And then the lighting of the lamps

We have had a request - sort of - for some T.S. Eliot, so here, because I've just watched him in 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' is Sir John Gielgud:

And here, because I've just re-read 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' is Sir Alec Guinness:

And here, just because, is Sir Anthony Hopkins taking 'The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock' at a fair old pace:

That is what

In response to my last post, in which I had a whinge about the latest edition of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy, a wise man has been pointed out that you can't please all the people all of the time. Fair dos, and I shall mention the matter no more. Except to point out that a more cynical man than me might point to the happy chance by which a completely unsuitable set of rules which happen to be published by Osprey are shoehorned into a series of articles which rely for their lavish illustration on pictures whose copyright is owned by that very same Osprey. Moving on...

In order to make my gridded Great War tabletop more pleasing to the eye I have had recourse to our friends in the model railway hobby, but the materials which I have ordered via the interweb haven't yet arrived. What did come in yesterday's post was a cheap second hand DVD of Tony Richardson's film 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. My recent re-reading of the first Flashman novel, which features more than one appearance by Lord Cardigan, had brought it to mind along with the fact that it was a very long time since I had seen it. Having watched it again, I must confess that I don't think much of it. However, I won't dwell on the negatives, because the performances of Sir John Gielgud as Raglan, Harry Andrews as Lucan, and Trevor Howard as Cardigan are all very good indeed. My cynical alter ego might be tempted to note that George MacDonald Fraser's written description of Lord Cardigan, first published in 1969, is pretty much identical to Howard's performance as the man in a film released in 1968.

Ilkley, the movie

Readership of this blog has fallen to an all time low (and many thanks to both of you for persevering) which may be why no one has asked any questions about the film entitled 'Ilkley' that is being made in Ilkley and is apparently about, amongst other things, Ilkley.

Reading the programme for the upcoming Ilkley Literature Festival (no surprises that there is a session on J.B. Priestley or that I intend to go) reminded me that the film is supposedly set at the event and made me wonder if they would be shooting at any of the sessions. It turns out that they shot it in February and March and that it is currently in post-production. One can only assume that they are using CGI to add in the vast crowds who will soon flock to the Kings Hall, the Clarke-Foley centre, the Ilkley Playhouse etc etc and who weren't there earlier in the year. In fact if the dates I've seen for location shooting are correct viewers will leave the cinema with impression that there is always several feet of snow in Ilkley in late September.

As well as starring Sir Derek Jacobi, as mentioned in my previous post on the subject, it also features Roger Allam and Anna Maxwell Martin. She at least actually comes from Yorkshire; we shall have to reserve judgement on the others' accents until we hear them.

Still no news of toy soldier content, but it's not looking very promising.

Cabinet change imminent, I see

"I turn over a new leaf every day. But the blots show through." - William Fisher

And so to the theatre. I have been to see Billy Liar, Waterhouse and Hall's 1960 adaptation of the former's novel. The play constricts things to the Fisher's living room (the film - which introduced that great favourite of this blog, Julie Christie - expanded it all back out again). The authors were of course both Leeds boys; indeed Hall lived in Ilkley - epicentre of wargaming in the lower Wharfe Valley - in the years before he died. He also married a 28 year old dancer when he was in his early sixties, which makes one think. ["It does," interrupts an unwelcome voice from the back "but no one else is thinking the same thing that you are."]

I've seen it written that there's a bit of Billy Fisher in all of us - and after all who can truly say they have never pretended to a stranger that one or more close relatives have had a leg amputated? On the other hand I'm pretty sure that I could make a better fist of going out with more than one woman at the same time than he does. Before anyone says anything, I'm not saying that I approve, simply that if one is going to do something then one might as well do it right.

I've also been to see 'Last Laugh', John Godber's new film, which features a working class Northern lad fantasising about becoming a scriptwriter whilst unsuccessfully juggling multiple relationships including one with a woman who makes the break that he himself cannot summon up the courage to do. There is nothing new under the sun. It's being shown along the M62 corridor prior to a full release and I thought it was very entertaining. Godber himself is excellent as the father. In other cinema news shooting has just started on a film called 'Ilkley', a black comedy based in, er, Ilkley - epicentre of wargaming... ["Enough, you've done that one already."] - and starring Sir Derek Jacobi amongst others; no news yet of any toy soldier content.

You can practically see it from here

"We must be very careful not to assign this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations." - Winston Churchill

The reputation of the film 'Dunkirk' has been rather tarnished, at least in the circles in which I move, by Nigel Farage praising it and urging all 'youngsters' (sic) to go and see it. Clearly in Farage's fantasies he imagines that had he lived at the time he would have been one of the few, heroically dog-fighting in his Spitfire; whereas most other people assume that he would have been interned on the Isle of Man as a Nazi sympathiser. In any event, I don't think one can blame the film simply because of the delusions of one unpleasant shit.

What one can blame it for is being somewhat soulless and clichéd, which I'm afraid was rather my impression. It is technically accomplished and I was very impressed indeed by the cleverness of the way that the three time strands (an hour in the air, a day on the sea and a week on the land) are meshed together and interact one with another. But I didn't engage with the characters, felt no sense of threat or menace and was tempted to laugh out loud on a couple of occasions, especially I'm afraid at Sir Kenneth Branagh, or at least at his character. As others have observed he seems to be channelling Kenneth Moore, but even the man who sank the Bismark (and, of course, actually saw active wartime service in the Royal Navy) would have struggled to convince with the character's final speech.

"Get off my bridge, Branagh."

For the rivet counters amongst us there are plenty of oddities. Spitfires don't seem to have too much fuel but do apparently have unlimited ammunition. Mark Rylance's character can tell the difference between Spitfires and Hurricanes just by the sound of the engine, despite - as any fule kno - them both having the same one; a point which is made to look even more ridiculous when it is revealed that he has a personal link with Hurricanes. In fact the air section of the film plays most obviously to the myth and, right at the end, is the vehicle for the clunkiest metaphor that I can remember seeing in a film since the whole of 'Life of Pi'.

Having said all that, it passed a couple of hours pleasantly enough and gave me something to write about. The elder Miss Epictetus enjoyed it and despite her youth didn't seem any more likely to vote UKIP when we came out.

Lolling on a lewd love bed

And also to the theatre. Northern Broadsides are celebrating their twenty fifth anniversary with a limited season of the play with which it all started, Richard III. It's only playing in Hull, as part of the UK City of Culture programme, and at their home base of the Viaduct Theatre. It has been many years since I visited Dean Clough and my first recommendation is to leave plenty of time to find the entrance which is carefully positioned so as not to be visible to anyone approaching on either foot or by car. Once inside however, I was welcomed to the auditorium by Bazza himself; the personal touch always goes down well.

Actually auditorium is pushing it; what we have is a large workspace within what a century and a half ago was the world's largest carpet factory, with a low central stage overlooked on two sides by banks of seating, with entrance and exit for the actors taking place from either end. This was the production's first night in Halifax and the layout caused some slight confusion. Buckingham gestured grandly in one direction for Catesby to head off to importune Lord Hastings only for the man himself to stride off rapidly in the other, to the general amusement of cast and audience.

Aside from the celebratory aspect, much of the publicity has highlighted the casting of an actor with a physical disability, Mat Fraser, as the title character. It's interesting that it is this rather than the alternative of someone able bodied affecting a disability which is seen as noteworthy, especially compared with the fact that it has been many years since the part of Othello became restricted to black actors, such as Sir Lenworth in Northern Broadsides' own version. I don't think it makes any difference in and of itself. Fraser makes the most of it by stripping to the waist in the Tower scene - the one where Hastings comes to regret not being more amenable to Catesby's entreaties and which this blog has had cause to reference previously - but no doubt a different casting would have resulted in a different bit of business; it's called acting. The central performance has to stand on its own - "to prove a villain" - and I'm pleased to say that it does.

In a first for a production that I have seen, the princes in the tower are played by adults. This worked well enough except that the same actor played both Edward V and Tyrell; I lost concentration for a bit while pondering how he had managed to smother himself off stage. There is no cross gender casting - more difficult to carry off in the History plays of course - unless one counts the reappearance towards the end of the actresses who have played the various queens, this time in male military uniform as standard bearers. And speaking of the queens, Flo Wilson is especially venomous as Margaret; get cursed by her and one will stay cursed. The battle of Bosworth provides one of two opportunities which are taken to shoehorn in a bit of clog dancing - the other is the coronation - and given the prominence of that art in their opera omnia one can forgive them this. Michael Jones thinks it was Frenchmen armed with pike who caused Richard to cry "A horse, a horse...", but apparently it was northerners wearing clogs; who knew?

Time gets harder to outrun

And so to the theatre. The main question that people have been asking me recently - besides whether I have any more photos of the Young Farmers Ladies Tug-of-War at the Otley Show - is why it's been so long since I last went to see Romeo and Juliet; it must be a couple of months at least. Well, you can all stop worrying, because I have been to see the production that Watermill Theatre are putting on as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival. The show was preceded by a very interesting talk from Dr Helen Smith, Director of the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at York University, who my subsequent research tells me is, amongst other things, an expert on the link between reading and digestion. I hope and trust that your perusal of this blog will swiftly result in a productive visit to the place of easement.

The programme promised a show that highlighted the youthfulness of the characters, but let's be honest, they all do. Barring Sir Ken Branagh's decision to have a much older Mercutio they all make a fuss about how young the actors are without actually going the whole hog and casting a thirteen year old to play Juliet; probably because they'd get arrested if they did. For the record the cross gender roles on this occasion were Benvolio, Friar Laurence and the Prince. The first two happen so often that I'd be more surprised now if they weren't played by women.

I have seen the play so many times that it's all becoming a bit blurred between what is the original text, what is necessary because of limitations of cast numbers, and what is directors putting their personal stamp on it; Dr Smith in one sense made things worse for me by drawing attention to the fact that there were differences between the various versions published in and shortly after the author's lifetime. I will therefore restrict myself to commenting on two things that I am pretty sure were new to me. The second and third scenes in Act 3 (the Nurse telling Juliet of Tybalt's death and Romeo lamenting to the Friar his banishment from Verona) were played simultaneously, cutting between the two in the way that one could imagine happening in a film, and I thought it worked rather well. Less happily, Mercutio played the whole of Act 2, Scene 4 in a wetsuit and flippers: it was by no means clear why. One possibility is that it has something to do with the song 'Wetsuit' - which the cast may have sung before the action started; I'm not entirely au fait with the Vaccines' oeuvre so I can't positively swear to that - but it just made me think of Kermit the Frog.  Anyway, it looked as ridiculous as you would imagine, especially while he was engaging in his 'saucy merchant' banter with the Nurse.

Despite that, I enjoyed it. The cast were not only young they were energetic, enthusiastic and musical. There is of course a lot more fighting and killing than wooing and loving in the play - for the benefit of the apprentices in the audience according to Dr Smith - and the cast seemed more comfortable with that aspect, throwing themselves about with vigour. However, the reality is that convincing chemistry between the eponymous leads is rather rare; these two were no worse than many I've seen.

Carry on Henry

King Henry VIII:        Her figure's all right. What about her face?
Thomas Cromwell:     I am assured, sire, it is the fairest in all Normandy.
King Henry VIII:        What about her... [indicates hourglass figure]
Thomas Cromwell:     The fullest in all Normandy.
King Henry VIII:        Has she been chaste?
Thomas Cromwell:     All over Normandy.

However good Damien Lewis and Mark Rylance were in the BBC's adaptation of Wolf Hall, I think we can all agree that Sid James and Kenneth Williams gave us the definitive versions of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. I have been to see Dr David Starkey lecture on Henry VIII., where disappointingly, and despite his being a distinguished historian, he made no mention at all of either Marie of Normandy or Bettina, buxom daughter of the Earl of Bristol. I intended to challenge this omission in the Q&A afterwards, but unfortunately the great man's gaze never fell on my raised hand; instead we had to put up with eager sixth formers asking about the dissolution of the monasteries.

Other than that small oversight he was an informative and entertaining speaker, and notably one who didn't seem to alter his approach despite speaking to a largely non-academic audience. He was also rather charming and happy to sign books and chat in a way that put a lot of musicians I could name to shame. Perhaps as a nod to his reputation for being the rudest man in Britain he did have digs at several people including Prince Charles (easy target), Gordon Brown (not exactly au courant), feminists (yawn), people who study their family history (it is apparently the second step on one's way to one's dotage)  and Bartok's opera "Duke Bluebeard's Castle" (I disagree and have very fond memories of Sir John Tomlinson in Opera North's semi staged version in 2005).

I won't attempt to summarise what he said - read his books. He subscribes to the theory of French pikemen at Bosworth, but offered no evidence to support it. He touched on the subject during a very amusing and thought provoking diversion onto the parallels between the Reformation and Britain's exit from the EU on the one hand and radical Islam on the other. The previous lecture that I attended was marred by members of the audience taking the opportunity to disagree politically with the speaker and this was a refreshing change; at least it was until the first question, which was whether Dr Starkey thought he would be able improve his historical analysis by adopting a Marxist perspective. Spoiler alert: he didn't, and also took the opportunity to be gratuitously rude about Max Weber as well.

'tis enough, 'twill serve

And so to the theatre. In the film "What's New Pussycat", mostly remembered now for its theme song, Peter Sellers plays a psychoanalyst (inevitably Austrian thereby allowing him to do it in an 'amusing' accent) and Peter O'Toole a patient seeking a cure for compulsive womanising (a). Arriving at a strip club O'Toole is surprised to meet Sellers already in the place and asks him why he is there, resulting in the following exchange:

Dr. Fritz Fassbender: I, uh, decided to follow you here.
Michael James: If you followed me here, how did you contrive to be here before me?
Dr. Fritz Fassbender: I followed you... very fast.

Firstly, don't blame me, it was Woody Allen who wrote the jokes. And secondly, I acknowledge that this isn't all that relevant, even the bit about compulsive womanising. I was reminded of it however because a few days ago I wrote that I had seen a second production of Romeo and Juliet since visiting Verona, and now I can report that I have seen the first.

The West Yorkshire Playhouse (another connection: O'Toole - who was born and raised in Leeds despite claiming to be Irish - addressed the first meeting of the body which campaigned for the WYP's predecessor theatre) have put on a production of the play strangely similar in outlook to the one I saw last weekend, though on a much grander scale and taking a bigger axe to the text and characters. It was set in the present in a Northern city that could be Leeds, full of feral young people behaving badly, albeit wearing more clothes than the average Leeds city centre reveller. I thought it worked well, with once again the Capulet party being a highlight. This time it was sci-fi themed fancy dress with Capulet himself appearing as Darth Vader, and the music being the extended remix version of "I Feel Love".

The musical interludes probably account for it being rather long, despite having fewer characters and less dialogue than usual. Gender swapping is the big Shakespearean trope of the moment and here they went for the Friar and Mercutio. Having been pleasantly surprised by seeing the latter very successfully played last year by near octogenarian Derek Jacobi, I had a similar reaction to now see the character played by a young, black woman. Indeed Elexi Walker's outgoing performance - you wouldn't believe where she put the torch while telling Romeo that he must dance - was the highlight of the play for me and things fell off quite noticeably after her death. Mention must also be made of Lawrence Walker as Benvolio (lots of actors sharing surnames here, including, rather disturbingly, the two leads) who gained more prominence than he otherwise might, partly by taking over Balthasar's lines as well as his own, partly by going to the ball dressed as Buzz Lightyear, but also by being relentlessly jolly in a Brummy accent; I put it down to him having twigged that he's the only one who is going to come out of it alive.

"To infinity, and beyond"

Despite the fact that I didn't like the cuts they had made, nor the rather strange attempt at a feelgood ending - which funnily enough didn't work - overall this was a return to some sort of form at the Playhouse following recent disappointments.


(a) The film was apparently originally intended to star Warren Beatty and Groucho Marx; I think I'd have paid to see that.

You know what they say

"A large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous and liberal man."

 And so to the theatre. I have been to see Northern Broadsides take on Rostand's 'Cyrano de Bergerac'. You possibly know the plot from the rather good film starring Gérard Depardieu or from Steve Martin's modern day update. If you are from the UK and of a certain age however your first exposure to it may have been the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special in 1977; it was the one where Angela Ripon danced in the chorus line. Anyway, the play what Ernie wrote was 'Cyrano de Bergerac' and featured Penelope Keith and Francis Matthews (a) although the title role was naturally taken by Eric.

"What would it take for you to kiss me?" "Chloroform."

Of course, none of that has any relevance to the current version, which I liked very much. I am pleased to report that it was played straight and set in the seventeenth century as intended. It mixed both humour and deep sadness with the music and dancing for which the company are known and threw in some sword fighting for good measure. The prosthetic nose was most impressive. In an amusing twist Cyrano makes his first appearance at the back of the auditorium and his first few speeches are made from behind the audience. I'm pretty sure that everyone else also wanted to turn round to see the nose, but, like me, didn't want to be the first to do so.

(a) Surely best known as the voice of Captain Scarlet.