Back to Shakespeare

We went to see The Winter's Tale this evening, another filmed London stage play. It was broadcast live to Europe and we saw it on a bit of a delay.

As we were leaving, some people sitting around us said, in our general direction, "If you ever get a chance, tell us what that was all about!" They were laughing but they seemed to imply they'd had a hard time following it.

Dan and I enjoyed it. I had a short text exchange with William during intermission and he said, "How's the play, Mum?" I said, "It's intense Shakespeare."

And it was. You really needed to focus; if your mind wandered, you were in danger of losing the thread.

The acting was superb. A Reuters story said this:

Her cutting words were written by William Shakespeare, but the withering stare the straight-talking Paulina focuses on co-star Kenneth Branagh's insanely jealous King Leontes in a new production of "The Winter's Tale" is pure Judi Dench.

Dench's stare, at the end of the first half, has had audiences sitting on the edge of their seats since the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's late-life portrait of the wreckage wrought by jealousy opened this month.

It is a "moment I shall long remember," Guardian critic Michael Billington wrote.

The play is thought to be one of Shakespeare's later works and was first performed in 1611. It's not performed as often as many of his other works but it's getting a warm reception in London right now.

During intermission, we were amused by a recitation of Bernard Levin's Shakespearean quotes. Here it is although it's probably more fun to listen to than to read yourself.

On Quoting Shakespeare

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me,"

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning,

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you recall your salad days,

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you act more in sorrow than in anger;

if your wish is father to the thought;

if your lost property has vanished into thin air,

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy,

if you have played fast and loose,

if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle,

if you have knitted your brows,

made a virtue of necessity,

insisted on fair play,

slept not one wink,

stood on ceremony,

danced attendance (on your lord and master),

laughed yourself into stitches,

had short shrift,

cold comfort or too much of a good thing,

if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise

why, be that as it may,

the more fool you,

for it is a foregone conclusion that

you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare;

if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage,

if you think it is high time and that is the long and short of it,

if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out

even if it involves your own flesh and blood,

if you lie low 'till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play,

if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason,

then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head)

you are quoting Shakespeare;

even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing,

if you wish I was dead as a door-nail,

if you think I am an eyesore,

a laughing stock,

the devil incarnate,

a stony-hearted villain,

bloody-minded

or a blinking idiot,

then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for

you are quoting Shakespeare.

Hamlet-the-character: regularly redefined

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet was playing in London while we were there recently. We had checked on tickets before we ever left home but tickets had sold out in an hour a full year before the play opened. There were 30 tickets made available for each performance when we were there – first come, first served – and people were sleeping overnight on the sidewalk in front of the theatre hoping to score. We weren't among them.

The production didn't get good reviews but Benedict got rave reviews for his portrayal of Hamlet.

However, we did see it in the end, in a movie theatre in downtown Halifax. This was a filmed version of the stage production. We had read all the negative reviews but we weren't deterred from seeing it. I'm glad; I was blown away by it.

Before it started and during intermission, you could see the audience going in and out, getting some wine and snacks, stretching their legs (it was over three hours!) etc. That was fun – it was a little like being there.

Benedict is a wonderful actor – and must be exhausted by the end of it. He plays Hamlet with great energy and bravado. It is one of the most-produced plays of all time and I'm sure I'm just the latest in a long long line of people to say that Hamlet-the-character is regularly redefined by the last actor to play him. Over the last few days, I've watched (thanks, YouTube!) some of the actors who have risen to the occasion and who've been acclaimed for their performances. I found them all so different from each other.

John Gielgud played Hamlet anguished; Richard Burton – determined and confident; Laurence Olivier – forlorn and sad; David Tennant – a little bewildered. Hamlet, it seems, is whoever the actor portraying him decides he is.

After the curtain call at the theatre in London, Benedict always stepped forward and talked to the audience about the refugee crisis in Europe. He asked the audience for donations to help the refugees and by the end of the run, he had raised a lot of money for the cause. He spoke to us in the movie theatres after his performance also and was eloquent in his plea for people to help in this humanitarian emergency. He quoted an excerpt from the poem Home by Warsan Shire.

no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you

breath bloody in their throats

the boy you went to school with

who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory

is holding a gun bigger than his body

you only leave home

when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you

fire under feet

hot blood in your belly

it’s not something you ever thought of doing

until the blade burnt threats into

your neck

and even then you carried the anthem under

your breath

only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets

sobbing as each mouthful of paper

made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,

that no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land. . .

You can read the rest here.

Peace be with you

The Women in Black (London) hold a vigil every Wednesday from 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. around the statue of Edith Cavell, just near St Martin's church and Trafalgar Square. They've rarely missed a Wednesday since 2003. It was Wednesday when we happened to be walking in that neighbourhood on our recent trip to London and we saw the women there.

Women in Black is a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other forms of violence.

When I saw the Women in London that day, I remembered the times I stood with the Women in Black in Halifax, in front of the Old Halifax Library. The vigils were silent. We simply stood there, holding placards, handing out the material we'd brought along.

The one I remember most clearly was as the First Gulf War was beginning in 1990.

Early on the morning of January 17, 1991, a massive U.S.-led air offensive hit Iraq’s air defenses, moving swiftly on to its communications networks, weapons plants, oil refineries and more. The coalition effort, known as Operation Desert Storm, benefited from the latest military technology, including Stealth bombers, Cruise missiles, so-called “Smart” bombs with laser-guidance systems and infrared night-bombing equipment. The Iraqi air force was either destroyed early on or opted out of combat under the relentless attack, the objective of which was to win the war in the air and minimize combat on the ground as much as possible.

It's always difficult to be a pacifist in Halifax but particularly so when a new war is getting underway. We were called some very unpleasant names as we stood quietly.

I went into my archives to see what I might have written at that time about fighting for peace in a time of war. I was a columnist with The Daily News and this, in part, was one thing I wrote around that time:

I find it disheartening that the people who are anti-war, the people who work actively for peace have been put into a position where they feel almost apologetic about their opinion.

In order to avoid complete alienation from neighbours and acquaintances, some people who are for peace feel they must preface their every anti-war statement with something about supporting the troops: "I'm against the war but I support our troops, I'm proud of our boys and girls serving their country."

The other obligatory remark for people who speak against the war is a denunciation of Saddam. You have to acknowledge that you know how bad he is ("Many things are true even if George Bush says them," writes author Todd Gitlin in The Village Voice.) So you have to say, "I agree Saddam is a monster but..."

The question we should be asking ourselves is: how have we come to this? Where has this upside-down world come from, where values are so screwed up that it has become impossible to say you're against the war simply because you believe war is wrong.

Why has the use of war to settle international conflicts become the norm and people who oppose war have become The Other – marginalized by society?

Peace activists are harassed on the streets and called "traitor." Anti-war demonstrations are ignored or played down by the media. The people who march are portrayed as pie-in-the-sky dreamers or old hippies. Censorship is accepted with nary a whimper of protest. News reporters who normally talk about "objectivity" as if it were a sacrament, suddenly pepper their reports with "we" and "they."

All this because, all facts aside, at some deep and primal level, war is seen to be noble. It's usually mentioned in the same breath with democracy, freedom and God. To be against it then, is to be against democracy, freedom and God.

So you can be in favour of the war – just because. But if you're against the war, you'd better be prepared to qualify it, justify it, and apologize for it. Even still, you'll be a pariah.

The more things change, the more they change

London has changed a lot in the many years since I was there last.

There are many more people visiting now than then – in some places, you have to fight your way through crowds on the sidewalks and looking at the attractions.

(above) The front door of Buckingham Palace

(above) The British Museum on a rainy day

In 2015, the air is better and the Thames is cleaner.

It may be that there are still old hotels where the sheets feel damp and cool all night long but there are plenty of up-to-date hotels with nice dry bedding and even with small fridges and coffee-makers in the rooms.

When I was there the first time, it was still necessary in my hotel to put a shilling in the metre to get some hot water. (The tub was located between two floors and guests came up from one floor and down from the other to bathe.) You got enough luke-warm water with your shilling to cover the bottom of the tub but that was enough because as soon as you got in, you could sense people on the landing, awaiting their turn.

Today, you can take a beautiful bath or shower in a non-stick tub with grab-bars and fragrant soap and finish off with big fluffy towels.

Of all the changes, it may be the food that is most different. Food in England used to be a bad joke, a stereotype that was, unfortunately, all too real.

In the hotel in the bad old days, breakfast was offered, to be delivered to one’s room, up until 9:00 a.m. No matter what time you ordered it for – 8:00 or 8:30 or 8:45 a.m. – it was plunked down outside your door at 6:30 a.m.

No matter that you had ordered a soft-boiled egg, bacon and coffee, what you got was a cooled-off hard-boiled egg, hard cold toast, greasy sausage and tea.

I clearly remember the first restaurant we went into for lunch. The gravy on the mashed potatoes was cold with congealed fat on top. The peas were canned. After that, we did most of our eating in pubs where the food was hearty and usually pretty good.

And now? Now, I expect London has become one of the great culinary centres of the world. It abounds in restaurants, large and small, fancy joints and neighbourhood diners, brasseries, wine bars and yes, still the pubs.

We had wonderful food from pastries and croissants and breakfast sandwiches from bakeries in the morning to superior bangers (sausages) and mash at the café at Churchill’s Museum. We had several mouth-watering courses at Jamie Oliver’s Italian in Piccadilly Circus. We also had a more casual pre-theatre encounter with Jamie’s cuisine at one of his pop-up diners. Great food and lots of fun.

(all three above) At Jamie's Pop-up Diner

Many restaurants offer a nostalgic Sunday roast on their menus but we’re assured it’s not the grey tough overdone beef of a generation ago. As most menus insist, the food is free-range, organic, humanely raised. I had a traditional English breakfast with sunny-side up eggs. The yolks were so golden as to be almost orange. Best eggs ever.

The food is superbly cooked, sublimely served, and altogether delightful to share and eat. Bon appétit!

London: the beautiful and the ugly

There’s a lot of construction going on in London – colonies of cranes in all directions.

There are people who like the cranes. They're here in Halifax too. They look at the cranes and they hook their thumbs in the belt around their portly middles and they speak grandly about “progress” and “prosperity.”

It might result in prosperity for some but rarely for the community where the cranes are working. More often it’s a story of politics and power and business and corruption and the result will often be less-than-beautiful.

London is, without doubt, one of the great cities of the world. When I look at parts of it, I have to pinch myself to believe I’m there.

It also has some of the most beautiful buildings and gardens in the world.

Houses of Parliament

This is the Queen's backyard -- behind Buckingham Palace

But London has some ugly buildings too. I’ve often given it the benefit of the doubt because it had to do a lot of rebuilding after the war and it’s likely that buildings had to be thrown up quickly and on the cheap.

Some though, I have no doubt, are the result of developer-driven architecture that took no account of the surroundings and made no attempt to show respect for history, heritage, neighbourhood scale and the environment. It’s not the only time I’ve agreed with the Prince of Wales.

Cities large and small around the world are so often at the mercy of money. London is now one of the most expensive cities in the world, so expensive that many people will never be able to afford to live anywhere near the neighbourhoods where they grew up -- even neighbourhoods that were quite modest. Many neighbourhoods are being bought up by people from outside the country and are left vacant until they lose their appeal as neighbourhoods but become real estate that is very valuable to develop.

It's a problem that denies the humanity of the city-dwellers and draws a sharp and forbidding line between the people who have the power and the people who have been shut out. It's not a problem that's exclusive to London. London is just the one I've seen most recently.