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Metamorphosis – Globe Player Click here to subscribe or buy Metamorphoses is a playful theatre piece inspired by Ovid’s powerful collection of myths, written for the beautiful candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe, by the Globe’s first writers-in-residence in nearly four centuries. From the everyday to the astonishing, and the ordinary to the unimaginable, Ovid’s stories explore the power of transformation, the resilience of humans and the wonder of life. They were a great inspiration to Shakespeare and over 2000 years later, are reimagined for our world now by four young actors, three writers, two directors and….a candle consultant. Expect anarchy, shape shifting and a burning chariot of fire. Subscribe for £59.99 or buy for £9.99. What is a Portrait? – Scottish National Portrait Gallery Click here to watch This is a lovely little film made by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery called, and about, What is a Portrait? Many different people connected to the Gallery - from attendants to directors - each have an idea of how to define the idea and the fact of a portrait. Each viewpoint gives us a broader definition and explanation and reminds us that a portrait, however you define it, is not a snapshot. The Pregnancy Portrait of Elizabeth 1 - David Shakespeare. Click here to watch This is completely different. Also an art history film but here the historian David Shakespeare analyses an Elizabethan painting of a woman in precise detail. The video describes a detailed analysis of the painting currently labelled "Unknown woman in Persian dress" by Marcus Gheeraerts, and hanging in the Haunted Gallery of Hampton Court Palace. David Shakespeare is a prominent member of the DeVere Society, not a crackpot operation, but a serious association of scholars, writers and actors who believe that the works of Shakespeare – William, not David – were indubitably written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, a Tudor playwright praised by Queen Elizabeth I for his ‘outstanding mind and virtue’ and hailed by King James I as ‘Great Oxford’. The 400-year old question surrounding the authorship of the plays exercises Shakespeare lovers everywhere and everyone, it seems, has a different theory as to who Shakespeare was if he wasn’t The Man From Stratford-Upon-Avon. This age-old argument spills over from the plays to every aspect of Elizabethan artifacts, from books to furniture to clothes to paintings and each theory has its own adherents. This video is a case in point. In this video David Shakespeare posits that the subject of this painting is not an unknown woman but a pregnant Elizabeth 1. He decodes the complex allegories within the painting, including a link to Shakespeare's poem The Phoenix and the Turtle. He proposes how the painting looked originally and how and why changes were made to it. This closely reasoned interpretation of the painting, whether other experts agree with David Shakespeare or not, is worth watching. He certainly makes a convincing case. Swan Lakes x3 - Medici Click here to subscribe Here’s a fascinating idea. Three world famous choreographers, each from a different country - Cayetano Soto (Spain), Marco Goeke (Germany) and Hofesh Shechter (Israel) - offer their own unique 20 minute versions of Swan Lake for the Theaterhaus Stuttgart ballet company. What they’ve come up with, superbly danced by the exemplary dancers of the Theatrehaus Stuttgart Ballet, are three refreshing interpretations of a classic story that some thought had nothing new to offer. Tchaikovsky’s timeless ballet reimagined, not once, not twice, but three times, each time by a master. You know the name, the story, the music. They don’t all work but, ballet lovers, take a look at all of them and let me know what you think. By the way, in case you're wondering, Marco Goeke is the choreographer who was recently in the news for throwing dog faeces at a critic who hadn't liked one of his ballets. I’m afraid this is another of those programmes which require a premium subscription but I suggest you take the free trial and see whether a Medici subscription is worth it for you. A Taste of Honey – National Theatre Click here for tickets Readers of a ‘certain age’ will remember the shock of seeing the first production of Shelagh Delaney’s first play. Only 19 when she wrote it, she fully intended the furore that it caused. With the heedlessness and anger that only youth can draw on, the teenager wanted to draw attention to the issues of class, race, sexual consent, gender, sexual orientation and illegitimacy in mid-twentieth-century Britain, that she knew were not addressed in more conventional dramas. John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger had emerged only two years earlier, in 1956, the acknowledged beginning of the tide of ‘kitchen sink’ dramas to which A Taste of Honey was a worthy successor. I doubt that Shelagh Delaney had any idea that her first play, which she had intended to be a novel before deciding that it would have more impact in the theatre, would have the impact that it did although she hoped it would. Old-fashioned critics found it immature which, of course, it was, but the more contemporary writers saw guts, a new voice and an emerging talent to be nurtured. Lindsay Anderson in Encore called the play "a work of complete, exhilarating originality," and Kenneth Tynan wrote in the Observer, "Miss Delaney brings real people on to her stage, and, eventually, out of the zest for life she gives them, surviving”. Now the National Theatre gives this seminal play a new fresh production. Naturally, it no longer has the kick it had in 1958 but many of the issues it questions have not been addressed in our own time, and some have worsened. Lesley Sharp leads the cast as Helen in this gritty depiction of working-class life in post-war Britain. Kate O’Flynn is excellent as Jo. This production is an exhilarating portrayal of the vulnerabilities and strengths of the female spirit in a deprived and restless world. When her mother Helen runs off with a car salesman, feisty teenager Jo takes up with Jimmie, a sailor who promises to marry her, before he heads for the seas. Art student Geof moves in and assumes the role of a surrogate parent until, misguidedly, he sends for Helen and their unconventional setup unravels. A Taste of Honey was made into a successful film in 1961, directed by Tony Richardson who also wrote the screenplay from Shelagh Delaney’s play. The cast was led by Dora Bryan as Helen with Rita Tushingham as Jo. If you’re interested, the movie is available on video and bears very little resemblance to the original play. The reviews for this National Theatre revival have been highly complimentary to the cast although they had some misgivings about the 60-year old play which inevitably creaks in places and uses language which was barely acceptable in 1968 and certainly wouldn’t be in a new play today but it is authentic for its time. The FT said, "Lesley Sharp is brittle, volatile and finally vicious as the feckless Helen, a woman brutally aware that her stock is falling. Kate O'Flynn is truculent, defiant and vulnerable as Jo, a love-starved loner thrust unwillingly into motherhood.”
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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