Tom Cruise and host of British stars in this retelling of the July 1944 plot - - a war-time story of heroism and daring ending in tragedy
The latest vehicle for Tom Cruise is a well-made and exciting thriller set in the last months of the Second World War. It tells the story of the July 1944 plot against Hitler’s life by a group of German Army officers led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was an establishment aristocratic scion of the German officer class, a decorated war hero, who became convinced that the only way to secure Germany’s future and save the fatherland from the continuing evil and madness of the Nazi regime was to kill Hitler and stage a coup allowing the Germans to sue for peace. This project was astoundingly difficult for practical and psychological reasons – Hitler was the German Army’s Commanding Officer and on taking power as Chancellor in 1933 had made the German armed forces swear a personal oath of allegiance to him as their Fuhrer. The film opens with that oath displayed up on screen. This meant that any disobedience or questioning of orders was considered as treason and the very notion of defying the chief went against the Army code. Thus the cause has to be honourable – that of stopping the horror and bringing peace – or the will to carry out the plot would have been lacking. These are men, by no means democrats, who would rather die in the attempt to show that some were prepared to resist Hitler than have the ignominy and shame cast on them as perpetuators of Germany’s dark night of tyranny.
Stauffenberg is invalided out of the fighting in the Western Desert and is posted back to Berlin as a staff officer where he falls in with the various groups of civilians, soldiers and diplomats who formed the disparate German ‘resistance’ at this stage in the war and at this moment in the life of the Nazi regime. The plot is hatched to plant a bomb in Hitler’s Army HQ and run Operation Valkryie designed to topple the Nazi government. Although Tom Cruise is hardly the epitome of what may be imagined as the Prussian officer of the old school he carries off the part with dash and style. Sporting an eye patch and a prosthetic arm, Cruise portrays Stauffenberg as arrogant yet a caring family man, driven yet compassionate. He has a fine supporting cast of leading British actors as his co-conspirators: the dependable Bill Nighy; Tom Wilkinson as the duplicitous General Frohm who switches sides; a character part for comedian Eddie Izzard as the staff officer inside Hitler’s command HQ; the hard-working and multi-talented Kenneth Branagh as the original leader of the plotters who makes a failed attempt on the Fuhrer’s life at the beginning of the film and ends up being posted to the Eastern Front; a strong performance by 1960s heart-throb Terence Stamp as the old general lending moral support to the operation and a study in fear from politician Kevin Mcnally.
The audacious plan to plant a bomb under the table in Hitler’s map room of his command bunker has been the most celebrated of the numerous plots on his life that took place in those last, increasingly desperate days of the Third Reich. The film is an exciting thriller which maintains pace and plot whilst giving due attention to character and motivation. Stauffenberg is worried about the safety of his wife and family and there is a scene in which she signals that she is only too well aware of the consequences of failure for them all. There is a rather moving scene, handled well, between Stauffenberg and his wife when he sends them out of the city knowing they might not see each other again. At the end of the film the credits inform the audience that not only did Nina von Stauffenberg survive the war, she lived a long life into her nineties, only recently passing away. Although the audience knows the story ends in tragedy and the plotters will not succeed, the telling of the tale as to what went wrong with mishaps, mistakes and near-misses is compelling and the courage of those involved inspiring.
The threads of honour and decency and conflicts of conscience are well handled amidst the frenetic pace that builds through the movie. At one point one of the generals declares that even if they fail it will show that not all Germans went along with the Nazis to the bitter end and some had the courage to resist. That, of course, is a central thrust of the whole affair – some were prepared to risk all and resist the tyranny. Many of the best films, plays and books dealing with the wartime period confront the viewer with the uncomfortable but necessary question, contemplated from the safety of our modern lives in peace and security, of what we might have done or not done in circumstances depicted on screen, stage or page. As we salute the bravery of Stauffenberg and his comrades, and all those prepared to confront evil in whatever era, it is a thought to be pondered still.
Monday, 8 February 2010
A weekend in the City of Light
“Look at Paris in the Spring/Where each solitary thing is more beautiful than ever before” (Gigi, Learner & Lowe)
Our weekend trip to Paris, to celebrate our anniversary began at the new Eurostar station at Ebbsfleet in Kent. On arrival at the Gare du Nord, our hotel was some distance from the city, so we prepared for the walk uphill along the Rue de Dunkirk, a street we got to know well after missing several turnings.
Once settled into the hotel, small but with good views of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, a monument to the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and unfinished till the next great conflagration in 1914. We ventured out for the classic French dish, steak-frites, at a local bistro and soaked up some local colour.
Montmartre, built on a hill at the heart of the city, is easily accessible. We headed for the bars and cafés forming the centre of the artists’ colony, previously frequented by artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec. Then we visited the studio off the Rue Lepic which, by repute, saw the birth of modern art.
Lunching at the Café Sancerre, with tables spilling onto the pavement in haphazard fashion we then walked back along the Boulevard by way of the Moulin Rouge. Walking through student populated Paris, the Latin Quartier and Sorbonne, the Rue St Germain and Rue St-Michel, the tour was a reminder of the lyrics from Peter Sarsted’s hit song ‘Where do You Go To My Lovely?’
The traditional farmhouse-style restaurant behind the former HQ of the Ècole Polytechnique, where a meal with wine must be purchased with cash scratched together from purse or wallet, is a reminder there are still establishments left in the world that do not accept the ‘carte bleu’, as credit cards are known in France. So the diner resorts to counting the cash and enjoying steak and frites, a glass of wine à la rustic serves admirably. Neither ‘a la carte’ or ‘prix fixe’ but somewhere between the two.
The Metro looked more inviting from the surface, with its welcoming ‘belle époque’ signs above, giving way to a down-at-heel feel below. A tour of Paris by commuter bus can be taken with stops at such evocative place names and iconic buildings as Palais Royale and Comédie-Française.
The Louvre Museum was disappointing with crowds let loose with no control. It is also best to remember many Parisian museums and galleries are closed on Monday. This fact can be more than compensated for with a lunch near the Tuilleries Gardens in a typical city centre bar-bistro complete with waist coated waiters. We took a post-prandial stroll along the Seine’s Rive Gauche through the rain, passing green boxes where the artists keep their materials. The imposing riverside buildings of cultural and political Gallic life such as the Institute de France look down upon the artists at their easels, displaying the hauteur of their French Second Empire architectural heritage.
We took the last bus to the Gare du Nord through the famous Parisian rush hour and homewards on the Eurostar with billboards displaying the glories of the refurbished St Pancras station, running fashionably late as befits the essence and joy of Paree
Our weekend trip to Paris, to celebrate our anniversary began at the new Eurostar station at Ebbsfleet in Kent. On arrival at the Gare du Nord, our hotel was some distance from the city, so we prepared for the walk uphill along the Rue de Dunkirk, a street we got to know well after missing several turnings.
Once settled into the hotel, small but with good views of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, a monument to the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and unfinished till the next great conflagration in 1914. We ventured out for the classic French dish, steak-frites, at a local bistro and soaked up some local colour.
Montmartre, built on a hill at the heart of the city, is easily accessible. We headed for the bars and cafés forming the centre of the artists’ colony, previously frequented by artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec. Then we visited the studio off the Rue Lepic which, by repute, saw the birth of modern art.
Lunching at the Café Sancerre, with tables spilling onto the pavement in haphazard fashion we then walked back along the Boulevard by way of the Moulin Rouge. Walking through student populated Paris, the Latin Quartier and Sorbonne, the Rue St Germain and Rue St-Michel, the tour was a reminder of the lyrics from Peter Sarsted’s hit song ‘Where do You Go To My Lovely?’
The traditional farmhouse-style restaurant behind the former HQ of the Ècole Polytechnique, where a meal with wine must be purchased with cash scratched together from purse or wallet, is a reminder there are still establishments left in the world that do not accept the ‘carte bleu’, as credit cards are known in France. So the diner resorts to counting the cash and enjoying steak and frites, a glass of wine à la rustic serves admirably. Neither ‘a la carte’ or ‘prix fixe’ but somewhere between the two.
The Metro looked more inviting from the surface, with its welcoming ‘belle époque’ signs above, giving way to a down-at-heel feel below. A tour of Paris by commuter bus can be taken with stops at such evocative place names and iconic buildings as Palais Royale and Comédie-Française.
The Louvre Museum was disappointing with crowds let loose with no control. It is also best to remember many Parisian museums and galleries are closed on Monday. This fact can be more than compensated for with a lunch near the Tuilleries Gardens in a typical city centre bar-bistro complete with waist coated waiters. We took a post-prandial stroll along the Seine’s Rive Gauche through the rain, passing green boxes where the artists keep their materials. The imposing riverside buildings of cultural and political Gallic life such as the Institute de France look down upon the artists at their easels, displaying the hauteur of their French Second Empire architectural heritage.
We took the last bus to the Gare du Nord through the famous Parisian rush hour and homewards on the Eurostar with billboards displaying the glories of the refurbished St Pancras station, running fashionably late as befits the essence and joy of Paree
An Hour in a Bookshop
Oh what a delight
To pass an hour
In the confines of a bookshop
A universe to be discovered
As varied as the four walls
Containing it
Sometimes to be found in
Shopping arcade, sometimes in favourite
Hideaway places, up alleyways, off high-street
At others in transient arenas
Such as airports, train stations
or hospital concourses
Sporting titles for their literary emporiums
As revealingly innocuous as ‘books etc’
An hour spent in the company of books
Wherever the purveyor may be
Whether before a flight or train
Or awaiting others on a family shop
Perhaps as a form of retail therapy
Is never wasted
Tis a joy and a balm for the soul
An uplift which never fails
To restore good humour whatever the travails
Of time and circumstance
Try it sometime – pop into your local
Arena of words
And marvel
WBR Jeremy
To pass an hour
In the confines of a bookshop
A universe to be discovered
As varied as the four walls
Containing it
Sometimes to be found in
Shopping arcade, sometimes in favourite
Hideaway places, up alleyways, off high-street
At others in transient arenas
Such as airports, train stations
or hospital concourses
Sporting titles for their literary emporiums
As revealingly innocuous as ‘books etc’
An hour spent in the company of books
Wherever the purveyor may be
Whether before a flight or train
Or awaiting others on a family shop
Perhaps as a form of retail therapy
Is never wasted
Tis a joy and a balm for the soul
An uplift which never fails
To restore good humour whatever the travails
Of time and circumstance
Try it sometime – pop into your local
Arena of words
And marvel
WBR Jeremy
Ear Pieces
I sit in the room engaged in conversation
With a charming, warm man talking of
Disability – hearing impairment – in terms
Of ranges of sound and levels of loss
Of hearing retention and damage done
Of future worsening and capturing sound
Told “grasping the nettle just as well now
Or face worse problem to come”
Told it is about enhancement and sustainment
If not replacement of sound
We talk of many things my
Hearing confessor and I
Of family and society
Children and parents
Speech and cadence
Rhythm and tone
Accent and articulation
The state of the health service
Situations and circumstances
We go on twice the time of
Regular consultations
Then comes the fitting
First the choosing
Involving discussions of placement
Where is comfortable, less or more conspicuous
Inside or out, noise control or not, larger or smaller
“No point if they are not to be worn but sit in a draw
Like so many do nowadays”
Next the moulding with wax imprinted
By firing from a special gun
Sitting with wedge in mouth whilst
Waxy substance melts
It goes off without hitch
The time is late we break off
To stroll to the gents still talking companionably
In generalities
And then more forms
Arrangements made to collect
A good-natured farewell
The deed is done
The nettle grasped
What has been spoken of, debated, alluded to, put off
Has been achieved
In short, two words describe my official state of disability
WBR Jeremy, May 2007
With a charming, warm man talking of
Disability – hearing impairment – in terms
Of ranges of sound and levels of loss
Of hearing retention and damage done
Of future worsening and capturing sound
Told “grasping the nettle just as well now
Or face worse problem to come”
Told it is about enhancement and sustainment
If not replacement of sound
We talk of many things my
Hearing confessor and I
Of family and society
Children and parents
Speech and cadence
Rhythm and tone
Accent and articulation
The state of the health service
Situations and circumstances
We go on twice the time of
Regular consultations
Then comes the fitting
First the choosing
Involving discussions of placement
Where is comfortable, less or more conspicuous
Inside or out, noise control or not, larger or smaller
“No point if they are not to be worn but sit in a draw
Like so many do nowadays”
Next the moulding with wax imprinted
By firing from a special gun
Sitting with wedge in mouth whilst
Waxy substance melts
It goes off without hitch
The time is late we break off
To stroll to the gents still talking companionably
In generalities
And then more forms
Arrangements made to collect
A good-natured farewell
The deed is done
The nettle grasped
What has been spoken of, debated, alluded to, put off
Has been achieved
In short, two words describe my official state of disability
WBR Jeremy, May 2007
Biographica Audiologica
The creative process is often accompanied by some sort of compulsion. This is what is sometimes known as the creative urge. And so it was with my poem Ear Pieces The compulsion was to explain what had happened – a diagnosis of hearing loss – and the urge took the form of a poem. It is said that the material chooses the writer.
The story is not conventional, in keeping with much of my life. Many narratives of hearing loss run thus: sound or possibly perfect hearing since childhood and into adulthood followed by loss – gradual or steep – into middle or later age. A traditional, linear, almost accepted, progression from perceived ‘perfection’ to imperfection, from ‘full faculty’ to ‘impairment’.
I discovered my hearing loss in my late 30s. I had difficulties with ears when young but this may have been hidden due to attention given to a stammer/speech impediment Growing up in a large voluble family with an average noise level much higher than the conversational norm, I was used to the projection of voices with an emphasis on diction and thus any problem would not necessarily have been picked up on because most of the time I heard everyone around me only too clearly!
On marrying and moving to a much quieter environment my wife Karen realised I must have a hearing problem – she noticed I would not respond if I stood at one end of the kitchen with my back turned. I also had difficulty hearing low tones and certain pitches of sounds, both vocal and electronic.
Further investigation led to a diagnosis of audiosclerosis. This means the inner ear bone is stuck fast and does not vibrate. Through the process of diagnosis and acquisition of hearing aids I have learnt about the world of audiology, both its science and art. The hearing sense requires more in terms of ‘brainpower’ than sight. When man was living in the cave, the predators would come at night and sharp hearing was paramount in detecting them. Each person has a set number of ear hairs that facilitate hearing and once damaged the brain compensates in all sorts of ways. It is possible that I have been unconsciously lip-reading for many years. So much for survival of the fittest! The specialists could not accurately tell when the problem started, possibly in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. Any operation to substitute an inner ear piece of bone would not be effective due to nerve damage. Hearing aids followed and the rest is an ongoing revelation, if not quite history.
The adjustment to the onrush of sounds and sensations with the hearing aids – birdsong, footfall on stairs, wind-in-trees, traffic – was unexpectedly emotional. I ‘knew’ all those sounds but re-discovered them anew in sharper definition for the first time in a long time. I had always been able to listen to the radio or TV and read at the same time. With my new ‘ears’ in the sounds are much higher volume, so the concentration on one medium at a time is important.
The hearing adventure has provided something of an explanation of things past: from school, through to University and into the working world. With a childhood stammer giving an existing, perhaps self-imagined perception of ‘slowness’, speed (of thought, reaction, approach) and its lack has always been an issue. In retrospect, how much might have been missed in arenas requiring aural faculty - the classroom, lecture-hall, at interviews and in the court-room?
Despite these difficulties early on I have achieved academically – at degree and post-graduate levels and professionally in public and legal affairs, research and the media.
My passion is the radio and all things audio and I am developing a freelance practice in research, writing and broadcasting. My hearing loss is by no means a curtailment of ambitions in the aural arena and may add an extra dimension to my life through the enhanced understanding of people with disability generally and hearing loss in particular.
The story is not conventional, in keeping with much of my life. Many narratives of hearing loss run thus: sound or possibly perfect hearing since childhood and into adulthood followed by loss – gradual or steep – into middle or later age. A traditional, linear, almost accepted, progression from perceived ‘perfection’ to imperfection, from ‘full faculty’ to ‘impairment’.
I discovered my hearing loss in my late 30s. I had difficulties with ears when young but this may have been hidden due to attention given to a stammer/speech impediment Growing up in a large voluble family with an average noise level much higher than the conversational norm, I was used to the projection of voices with an emphasis on diction and thus any problem would not necessarily have been picked up on because most of the time I heard everyone around me only too clearly!
On marrying and moving to a much quieter environment my wife Karen realised I must have a hearing problem – she noticed I would not respond if I stood at one end of the kitchen with my back turned. I also had difficulty hearing low tones and certain pitches of sounds, both vocal and electronic.
Further investigation led to a diagnosis of audiosclerosis. This means the inner ear bone is stuck fast and does not vibrate. Through the process of diagnosis and acquisition of hearing aids I have learnt about the world of audiology, both its science and art. The hearing sense requires more in terms of ‘brainpower’ than sight. When man was living in the cave, the predators would come at night and sharp hearing was paramount in detecting them. Each person has a set number of ear hairs that facilitate hearing and once damaged the brain compensates in all sorts of ways. It is possible that I have been unconsciously lip-reading for many years. So much for survival of the fittest! The specialists could not accurately tell when the problem started, possibly in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. Any operation to substitute an inner ear piece of bone would not be effective due to nerve damage. Hearing aids followed and the rest is an ongoing revelation, if not quite history.
The adjustment to the onrush of sounds and sensations with the hearing aids – birdsong, footfall on stairs, wind-in-trees, traffic – was unexpectedly emotional. I ‘knew’ all those sounds but re-discovered them anew in sharper definition for the first time in a long time. I had always been able to listen to the radio or TV and read at the same time. With my new ‘ears’ in the sounds are much higher volume, so the concentration on one medium at a time is important.
The hearing adventure has provided something of an explanation of things past: from school, through to University and into the working world. With a childhood stammer giving an existing, perhaps self-imagined perception of ‘slowness’, speed (of thought, reaction, approach) and its lack has always been an issue. In retrospect, how much might have been missed in arenas requiring aural faculty - the classroom, lecture-hall, at interviews and in the court-room?
Despite these difficulties early on I have achieved academically – at degree and post-graduate levels and professionally in public and legal affairs, research and the media.
My passion is the radio and all things audio and I am developing a freelance practice in research, writing and broadcasting. My hearing loss is by no means a curtailment of ambitions in the aural arena and may add an extra dimension to my life through the enhanced understanding of people with disability generally and hearing loss in particular.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Michael Frayn's theatrical wonders
Many of the best playwrights, as many artists dealing with written and spoken word, are teachers at heart. Their urge to explain, clarify and show shines through their work and Michael Frayn is no exception. A brilliant wordsmith he has excelled in all areas of the writing trade: as a journalist he wrote a book that is widely regarded as the best insider’s view of how the old Fleet Street trade worked (Towards the End of the Morning); his column in the Guardian brought him a wide audience; his novels are celebrated for their verbal inventiveness and he has ventured into screenwriting being responsible for one of John Cleese’s best comic perfomances as the time-obsessed headmaster in Clockwise. Add philosopher; art historian and documentary film-maker to the accomplishments and you have the classic ‘Renaissance man’ – in France he would grace the dining tables of Presidents and the ‘belle monde’ – in Britain he is regarded as a ‘clever chap’ in a world of arts and media known for its abundance of cleverness.
Frayn’s play Noises Off is nothing if not ambitious. It has no less than two theatrical conventions at its core: the farce and the ‘play within a play’. Both dramatic themes are intertwined resulting in a torrent of words, hectic action and a lightning delivery as the play proceeds. The play centres on the rehearsal and performances of a theatre company touring the provinces with a farce. The first Act opens on the technical run-through with all the attendant stress of pre-opening nerves and actoral temperaments jangling. The playwright, lyricist and composer Noel Coward once remarked that the secret of successful stage acting was remembering the lines and not bumping into the furniture. This play is based on nobody remembering lines and everybody bumping into the furniture and each other. The first Act has the actors rehearsing their play whilst being directed from the auditorium by a director with a growing sense of despair at the prospect of a first night looming ever closer and barely-suppressed rage mounting. The characterisations are wonderfully drawn by Frayn and captured precisely by a skillful cast. There are the stock-in actoral universal types to be found in both amateur theatrical groups and repertory companies alike: the world-weary sarcastic director, played by Shaun Hennessy; the neurotic Garry, played by Rowan Talbot, who displays an athleticism and physical comedy worthy of a Rowan Atkinson at his most Mr Bean-like; the precious method actor feeling meaning and motivation in every stage direction whilst not being able to cope with life generally; the ‘ever-so-nice’ but intense blondie with her ‘luvvie’ way of calling all and sundry ‘sweetie’, 'darling' and ‘my love’ and trying to stick to her part when all is falling apart; the veteran actor with a drink and hearing problem – played with vigour and enthusiasm by Stuart Organ. One of the best performances is by Kim Ismay who plays the housekeeper in the play within the play as a cross between Maureen Lipman and Su Pollard with her flamingo-like turns and wonderful timing.
The play demands a great deal from its ensemble cast. All the characters have two roles: the part they are playing in the play ‘within’ and the part in the play ‘without’. Act I is the rehearsal process of the play within and Act 2 is set backstage during one of the performances as it tours the provinces. As usual there are sub-plots with members of the cast having affairs with one another. The second Act descends into classic farce – fights between the actors; intermix of ‘onstage’ and ‘off’ and the major ingredient of any farce – trouser-dropping. There is a very clever piece of pure artistry – a whole section of the play conducted in silence with actors conducting complicated stage business whilst trying to get on and off stage. The audience is treated to a reverse view of the action from a backstage perspective.
The Third Act is back on front set during a performance when the whole effort reaches a climax of wrong entrances, mixed-up lines and confused action. The audience has been ‘taught’ the play within as it unfolds and so by the Third Act the hilarity is in the understanding and appreciation of the ‘fluffed’ lines or the missed entrance. There is a very well done ‘sub theme’ running through the play involving sardines which is the device Frayn uses to hang a lot of the physical action. The action between the players and their parts onstage and their lives offstage merge and mingle in a colourful tumult of misunderstanding and mayhem.
Frayn’s play Noises Off is nothing if not ambitious. It has no less than two theatrical conventions at its core: the farce and the ‘play within a play’. Both dramatic themes are intertwined resulting in a torrent of words, hectic action and a lightning delivery as the play proceeds. The play centres on the rehearsal and performances of a theatre company touring the provinces with a farce. The first Act opens on the technical run-through with all the attendant stress of pre-opening nerves and actoral temperaments jangling. The playwright, lyricist and composer Noel Coward once remarked that the secret of successful stage acting was remembering the lines and not bumping into the furniture. This play is based on nobody remembering lines and everybody bumping into the furniture and each other. The first Act has the actors rehearsing their play whilst being directed from the auditorium by a director with a growing sense of despair at the prospect of a first night looming ever closer and barely-suppressed rage mounting. The characterisations are wonderfully drawn by Frayn and captured precisely by a skillful cast. There are the stock-in actoral universal types to be found in both amateur theatrical groups and repertory companies alike: the world-weary sarcastic director, played by Shaun Hennessy; the neurotic Garry, played by Rowan Talbot, who displays an athleticism and physical comedy worthy of a Rowan Atkinson at his most Mr Bean-like; the precious method actor feeling meaning and motivation in every stage direction whilst not being able to cope with life generally; the ‘ever-so-nice’ but intense blondie with her ‘luvvie’ way of calling all and sundry ‘sweetie’, 'darling' and ‘my love’ and trying to stick to her part when all is falling apart; the veteran actor with a drink and hearing problem – played with vigour and enthusiasm by Stuart Organ. One of the best performances is by Kim Ismay who plays the housekeeper in the play within the play as a cross between Maureen Lipman and Su Pollard with her flamingo-like turns and wonderful timing.
The play demands a great deal from its ensemble cast. All the characters have two roles: the part they are playing in the play ‘within’ and the part in the play ‘without’. Act I is the rehearsal process of the play within and Act 2 is set backstage during one of the performances as it tours the provinces. As usual there are sub-plots with members of the cast having affairs with one another. The second Act descends into classic farce – fights between the actors; intermix of ‘onstage’ and ‘off’ and the major ingredient of any farce – trouser-dropping. There is a very clever piece of pure artistry – a whole section of the play conducted in silence with actors conducting complicated stage business whilst trying to get on and off stage. The audience is treated to a reverse view of the action from a backstage perspective.
The Third Act is back on front set during a performance when the whole effort reaches a climax of wrong entrances, mixed-up lines and confused action. The audience has been ‘taught’ the play within as it unfolds and so by the Third Act the hilarity is in the understanding and appreciation of the ‘fluffed’ lines or the missed entrance. There is a very well done ‘sub theme’ running through the play involving sardines which is the device Frayn uses to hang a lot of the physical action. The action between the players and their parts onstage and their lives offstage merge and mingle in a colourful tumult of misunderstanding and mayhem.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Television biography of the late Paul Scofield
Due to the wonders of modern technology it is possible to record programmes and watch them at a later date - not such fantastic news one might think given the advent of the video recorder over two decades ago. It is just that the latest version -courtesy of the company owned by well-known Antipodean media tycoon turned US citizen - makes the recording business so startlingly, and in some ways worryingly easy - just the push red button. And so, in the household of the Oldest Trainee we push the red button and store up programmes that we may or may not watch later.
One such programme successfully retrieved from the system was a BBC documentary paying tribute to the late Shakespearian actor Paul Scofield. A gem of a TV biographical film for its example of the 'less is more' school of artistic philosophy. What was brought out by the programme was that this giant of the British post-war theatre: West End star, film actor of enormous renown, brilliant Shakespearian interpreter with a mesmeric stage presence and voice to match, was a shy man who was happiest at home with his family and who would return by train from the theatre to his Sussex village. A very un-show business actor. Therefore there were was not the usual roster of big names attesting to a an actor's life of premieres, parties and late-night goings-on in post-performance restaurants or of big personality clashes with fellow performers or of on-set tensions associated with film making. The contributors were themselves leading artists of stage and screen and they attested to Scofield's brilliance combined with modesty. Among their number, Sir Peter Hall; Sir Richard Eyre; Felicity Kendall; Peter Brook; Donald Sinden, John Harrison, Christopher Hampton most of whom declared they were inspired by this man.
The director of the last film Scofield made, Nicholas Hytner, reported that he agreed to play the part of Danforth the witchfinder in Arthur Miller's great play The Crucible, set in 17th Century Massachusetts, because he saw Danforth as the other side of the character that he played to great acclaim on stage and film - Thomas More in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons. What separated Danforth and More was time, circumstance and geography - from Tudor England to pre-Revolutionary America - but men of unyielding principle whose conscience is uncompromising but no less troubling with very different outcomes. More will not bend to the people's will and Danforth is unbending in his will to root out what he sees as heresy amongst the people of Salem. To have seen those connections across decades of experience shows a man of rare insight and sensitivity and the performances flank an extraordinary career. All in all a portait of a shy man who let his acting do the talking - man for all seasons.
One such programme successfully retrieved from the system was a BBC documentary paying tribute to the late Shakespearian actor Paul Scofield. A gem of a TV biographical film for its example of the 'less is more' school of artistic philosophy. What was brought out by the programme was that this giant of the British post-war theatre: West End star, film actor of enormous renown, brilliant Shakespearian interpreter with a mesmeric stage presence and voice to match, was a shy man who was happiest at home with his family and who would return by train from the theatre to his Sussex village. A very un-show business actor. Therefore there were was not the usual roster of big names attesting to a an actor's life of premieres, parties and late-night goings-on in post-performance restaurants or of big personality clashes with fellow performers or of on-set tensions associated with film making. The contributors were themselves leading artists of stage and screen and they attested to Scofield's brilliance combined with modesty. Among their number, Sir Peter Hall; Sir Richard Eyre; Felicity Kendall; Peter Brook; Donald Sinden, John Harrison, Christopher Hampton most of whom declared they were inspired by this man.
The director of the last film Scofield made, Nicholas Hytner, reported that he agreed to play the part of Danforth the witchfinder in Arthur Miller's great play The Crucible, set in 17th Century Massachusetts, because he saw Danforth as the other side of the character that he played to great acclaim on stage and film - Thomas More in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons. What separated Danforth and More was time, circumstance and geography - from Tudor England to pre-Revolutionary America - but men of unyielding principle whose conscience is uncompromising but no less troubling with very different outcomes. More will not bend to the people's will and Danforth is unbending in his will to root out what he sees as heresy amongst the people of Salem. To have seen those connections across decades of experience shows a man of rare insight and sensitivity and the performances flank an extraordinary career. All in all a portait of a shy man who let his acting do the talking - man for all seasons.
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