I once appeared on stage with Sir Ian McKellen. It was not one of my greater moments in the spotlight. It came about late in 1994 (I forget the exact date), when I was in the middle of programming a long season of Shakespeare-related films at the National Film Theatre. One of them was aRead More
The first X-rated film I saw was The Long Good Friday. It was 1981, I was nineteen, and a little apprehensive about the promised violence that only someone of the age I had now attained was permitted to see. The opening scenes of the film were confusing. Money was being changed hands, clearly illicitly. TheRead More
I’ve been in Athens for a few days, on holiday, not having visited city or indeed the country before now. One curious event I wasn’t expecting was finding out that the National Theatre of Greece was putting on William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. Timon in Athens? I could not say no. Timon of Athens isRead More
Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face That like the sun did make beholders wink? … A brittle glory shineth in this face. As brittle as the glory is the face. To the cinema, and the next day to the theatre,Read More
Two things that it may not seem wise to introduce into a television comedy are religion and death. The final episode in the most recent series of the BBC’s Upstart Crow gave us both, and it was the appearance of the latter that I found extraordinary. When can someone die in a comedy, and whatRead More
Skimming through Twitter early on a Saturday morning I caught sight of a message from the Before Shakespeare project. It invited its followers to come to an event that afternoon to celebrate and explore the history of The Curtain, one of the first London 16th-century theatres, whose archaeological site was only recently discovered. So offRead More
To Stratford, courtesy of Gravesend last night, seeing a live broadcast of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest close to home and in relative comfort (alas the theatre designed with sufficient consideration to fit my legs has yet to be built). The production has generated much interest because of the use of itsRead More
Fourth and final among these reviews of the year is Shakespeare. 2016 was Shakespeare’s quatercentenary, apart from anything else a great opportunity to use that splendid word – and an annoyance of course when others try to correct it (there is no ‘r’ in quater- – look it up). Specifically, it was four hundred yearsRead More
The former Labour MP Chris Mullin has published an autobiography called Hinterland. Its title comes from the argument, regularly made, that politicians ought to have a background beyond politics, to broaden their view of life. I don’t think it can be proven that having a rich back story inevitably makes you better at politics, norRead More
Not long after YouTube appeared in 2005, I started to take note of the phenomenon of online Shakespeare. I had been interested in Shakespeare and film for a long time – it was really Shakespeare that encouraged my interest in film in the first place – but here was something quite new. Previously Shakespeare filmRead More