The hoop-la surrounding the London staging of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is almost as interesting as the musical itself. The ticket-tout-defeating instructions for admission to the Victoria Palace Theatre that came with my pair of house seats were more elaborate and demanding than those for our recent night out at Buckingham Palace. In the event, though, we were whisked past the velvet rope … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2017
Imperium on the Potomac staged in Stratford-upon-Avon
Though a fan of Robert Harris’s fiction, I have to confess that I’ve not read his Cicero trilogy. That’s probably because I had insufficient exposure to Cicero during the many years I did Latin at my Kentucky high school. (Indeed, I have the impression that my father, at more or less the same schools, was much better grounded in the classics.) Of course, I’ve had to translate snippets of … [Read more...]
Reflections on the Bodleian’s Treasures — and a few others
To be honest, though for most of my adult life I’ve lived less than twenty minutes away from the Bodleian Library, I haven’t spent a great deal of time in its reading rooms – or even using its collections. When younger, I preferred my Oxford college library, and even then, I disliked reading, working and writing in the company of others. The Internet was made for people like me. But … [Read more...]
American Television’s Götterdämmerung Frightens the London Theatre Zone
Owing to circumstances of age and birthplace, I expect I was a fan of – perhaps addicted to – the American TV series of the late-1950s to early 1960s, The Twilight Zone. At this week’s première at the Almeida Theatre of Anne Washburn’s mash-up adaptation of eight episodes of this sci-fi schlock-horror entertainment, I think I did – just – recognise the theme tune. Much as I enjoyed the … [Read more...]