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Monday 16 August 2010

A Winter's Tale wagged by the dog....

A bit of a quieter weekend for me. After failing spectacularly in seeing the perseids meteor shower on Thursday because of cloud cover, we set our sights on a bit of culture this weekend in the rain.

Last Winter the Royal Shakespear Company performed an acclaimed version of the Bard's A Winter's Tale, from where this production photo has been copied into the blog. Failing to secure tickets last winter I thought that's it, I have missed the boat. However it was then sent out into the provinces, on tour to Stratford in August and will end up in Newcastle in October (where the RSC's residency season was always a highlight of the year when I lived up there)

So off to Stratford upon Avon we went..... and what a performance! It may have been 3 hours 10 minutes long but we were in rapture throughout, though we did slightly lose our way at one point with a bawdy dance routine involving affixed phallus's to woodland sprites - I kid you not.

For me the RSC can do no wrong with their sheer theatrical brilliance. Their stage direction, performances, the slickness of the sets and atmosphere and sheer spectacle always shine head and shoulders above anyone else or anything else I have seen. Back in the 1980's I saw "TWICE" the RSC's absolutely outstanding 9 hour long performance of Nickolas Nickelby - the second time I saw it I did it in one sitting (2 intervals) on a Saturday - it was that good, though parts of me took months to get any feeling back!!

Which meant that yesterday we had a quiet day - can't have too much excitement in one weekend. A friend popped over in the afternoon and brought Freddi to inflict himself on the garden. Freddi is used to my house as he stayed with us in May for the weekend. We like Freddi.

Tonight I shall have a play with my new camera, which astonishingly is languishing unopened in it's box since it arrived on Thursday (I'm slacking). I was meant to be heading down to Devon to record a programme about Wasps tomorrow but the weather is looking decidedly dodgy for tomorrow so we will postpone for a while until this planned rain passes over. My camera may therefore tried out at home instead.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great weekend. I love the Courtyard Theatre that the RSC are using at the moment - it has such a special atmosphere and wherever you sit you feel part of the action. Have fun with the new camera.

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  2. Hi Robin a fellow thespian, it is a wonderfully intimate theatre.

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  3. It sounds like you saw a wonderful production of A Winter's Tale. The dog is adorable. Get the new camera out of the box man, we want more pictures.

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  4. As it happens Oldcrow the camera was unleashed last night.....

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