Henry V – Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, Propeller I’ll begin with my gripes: getting such matters off one’s chest always enables one to take a more reasoned view. My complaints about the opening night run thus. Propeller – I have been going to the theatre long enough to know that opening nights are variable in length,…
Measure for Measure – Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, RSC Measure for Measure is that difficult beast, a tragicomedy, and my experiences have to date been somewhat mixed – but this fine production from the RSC was fresh, innovative and often moving. My previous encounters with the play have tended to stress neither the tragic nor the comic so much…
Some of us really do love the idea of libraries and their endless rows of books. Take the National Library of Wales, for instance, with its cavernously inspirational reading room, and when you need a breath of fresh air, uplifting views of Cardigan Bay – it’s hard not to feel one is on the very…
The Importance of Being Earnest – Rose Theatre, Kingston Upon Thames Written over a hundred years ago, Oscar Wilde’s comedies remain popular. Last year, it was the turn of An Ideal Husband to grace the West End, alongside countless amateur, school and regional productions. And this year, within the last month, two productions of The…
So the Summer Holidays drew to a close with a visit to the cinema to see The Inbetweeners. Of course, I laughed throughout, not least at moments of painful self-recognition. It’s cleverly observed, shrewdly written and somewhere there’s compassion for the characters. But somewhere it’s also vacuous: after the booze and the bonks there’s not…
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – film and novel Seeing the film before reading the book is one of the gravest of sins in the English teacher’s manual, and of that I am guilty when I come to this haunting and subtle novel. The film is one of the best Merchant-Ivory films of…