A Tale of Two Actors.

Geoffrey Hughes

The Curse of TV

Geoffrey Hughes was one of the greatest British character  actors that the country never got to see. Like many actors who find regular employment and security in a TV soap he was never offered or took the roles in the theatre or cinema that would have shown his great talent. Coronation Street was in its day the queen of the soaps and was truly original and groundbreaking – it brought ‘kitchen-sink drama’ to the small screen and showed who the working class were, giving them a voice. Geoffrey Hughes played a popular charter in the soap for many years, the loveable, big hearted, not overly bright dustbin man Eddie Yeats. He, like many actors of his time was cursed with the ‘is there life after soaps’ syndrome. His soap character  was so strong and so embedded in the TV viewing psyche that directors found it impossible to see or cast him in any other role for some time. The few things that he did do outside of soaps in later life showed that he was an actor of consummate skill. He had done his apprentice in repertory theatre and had taken Shakespearian roles. The pity is that no one wrote or cast Geoffrey in the great parts that he would have done justice to. A great actor that was missing from our screens for a long time.

R.I.P. Geoff and thanks.

Simon Day

Directors wit.

Simon Day might well end up like Geoffrey Hughes not receiving the roles or scripts that his obvious talents deserve. His Wikipedia page states that he a ‘comedian’  when it clear from the many characters he played in The Fast Show that he much more – he is a great character actor. Dan Frazer the actor who played the Captain to Telly Savalas’s Kojak once said it was difficult to work with Savalas because his presence and charisma stole every scene. Simon Day has the same screen presence his charisma is captivating. There should be a leading role waiting for him in the next BBC remake of  a Dickens. He would have been wonderful in so many parts of the recent remake of the Bards history plays. Simon Russell Beale is a wonderful actor but his Sir John Falstaff  lacked that twinkle in the eye – it was a good actor doing a good job -  I wondered what Simon Day would done with the part. When some one writes a new detective series that is not cliché ridden the major role should go to Simon Day he would be a good detective. One of the luvvie directors from the NT or RSC should be banging  his door down to have him in their new plays, but alas they lack the wit. Simon Day needs more serious and challenging parts – it is a crying shame that his talents are going to waste.

Aisling Gheal - the Hollow Crown and Twitter.

The Power of Twitter

Is it possible to mention Ken Tynan and AA Gill in the same breath? When looking for someone with an honest and intelligent appraisal of the modern equivalent of the stage – the television – then yes. Gill would be loved if he were left leaning , but he has been pushed into his idiosyncratic slightly barking British eccentric corner by politically correct alternative comedians (mainly due to his friendship with Jeremy Clarkson) and the chattering classes.

 The point is  -  Gill made some perceptive comments about the new TV adaptation of the Bards History plays  - and what’s more he liked them. But last night a terrible thing happened – it is something I do but keep quiet about. Like all great Shakespearian tragedy the seed of doubt is sewn and we watch it grow – to its conclusion. Aisling Gheal watching the Hollow Crown, Henry V, saw the seed of a bad production which grew in front of her – and she Tweeted her observations – and others saw what she had seen and contributed to the Tweet – feed massacre.

I have to say that I started to do the same last week! That gate is modern! Look at that fire in the middle of the room – it wouldn’t be like that! Where will the smoke go and everything is so clean – unsmoked. Is that the house at Weald and Downland museum?

The point is that ‘doing’ Shakespeare in a  ‘naturalistic’ way is always dangerous. Less is more. ‘Doing’ Shakespeare in a Shakespeare way is always dangerous. Actors seem to become a little more unstable in the presence of the Bards words  - which of course are bettered by their saying of them. Actors must see Will was having quite ago at them in the rehearsal of the mechanicals play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Actors acting Shakespeare are like a BBC radio policeman – they all sound the same.

Some one Tweeting suggested that the Ken Branagh and Emma Thompson’s film of Henry V could never be bettered.  Ken, now Sir Ken, started his Shakespearian acting by being a very good copy of Olivier  with all the same mannerisms and enunciation. But he grew up and moved on – with Brian Blessed and Judy Dench – to some very odd actor centred productions – which left the Bards words mightily skewed at the expense of a luvvie performance. He then found that the Bards words were in fact quite good and he got a lot of mileage out of whispering his lines. He’s now arrived, as Gill points out in a review of Wallander -  that less means more.

Night

fox
moon
cloud
steals
across
sky
black
shadow
earth

Walking Philosophy and Poetry

Walking Philosophy and Poetry

The Lake District bathed in sun light is a beautiful place, in rain and cloud, full of awe. It certainly is a place to reflect upon the human condition and man’s place in the great scheme of things. I get maudlin in the mist and dwell on Dido’s Lament:

When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.
When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.
Remember me, remember me, but ah!
Forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah!
Forget my fate.

Perhaps it is my Welshness or just the nature of mountain people to brood on the harshness of life. So many poems of R.S. Thomas come to mind too in the mountains -  sheep living in a gap in the clouds becomes a reality.

In this mood I always return to my obsession with the state of mind of Wordsworth and Coleridge when they too were in wet white landscapes. Did the mountains really put them in a similar frame of mind – is it where they contemplated life, death, God?  Both of them had tempestuous relationships with friends and family to brood on too, they had complicated and difficult lives. The poetry of the two is evidence that they did consider great ‘ideas’, Coleridge often referred to as philosopher and theologian, while Wordsworth as philosopher is overlooked.

Roger Scuton, in his excellent essay about Spinoza, quotes Wordsworth’s The Prelude as encapsulating Spinoza’s position in many ways:

I felt the sentiment of Being spread

O’er all that moves and all that seemeth still;

O’er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought

And human knowledge, to the human eye

Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;

O’er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,

Or beats the gladsome air; o’er all that glides

Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,

And mighty depth of waters.

It is a pity that Wordsworth is commonly reduced to one line of poetry, and Coleridge is thought to have been a lonely befuddled drug addict.

Continuing the contemplation of the human condition in Black Sail youth hostel in Ennerdale there is the dedication to Chris Brasher another great thinker. He was famous  for getting things done and planning ‘ on the back of an envelope’.

There is a quote from Browning that goes with the dedication to Brasher

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?

The mounains are where thoughts drift down…….

Reply to http://www.auxbordsdesmondes.fr

Ousios

Today of all days it seems appropriate to talk about the meaning of words. The word of today for theologians will be Ousia. The ‘God particle’ Higgs-boson has been found - the particle that lends mass to matter and holds the universe together. For years theologians have examined and debated the writing of the early Christian fathers about what the trinity and the world was made of or from – what substance/matter. The ancient Greek word for this matter was Ousia often translated into English as ‘substance’. However this is a travesty of the translation - and in the changes in the meaning of the word over hundreds of years. Today theology has been changed there is now a matter/substance that gave form to the world….. Can it be that the Higgs-boson is the matter that God is made of? Have we seen God? No probably not. Theologians will say that the word ‘Ousia’ did not actually state what it was supposed to… it did not get to the ‘essence’ the ‘essential nature’ that is God. The Higgs-boson will not convey the claims made by the early Christian fathers that the God – head (the trinity) is omnipotent, omniscient, all loving etc The particle is still not able to explain God or why evil exists.

Words are such bad purveyors of what they mean!  

Wittgenstein argued that the meaning of words comes from the function they perform within any given ‘language-game’. He rejected language having a direct connection to reality - he argued concepts do not need to be so clearly defined to be meaningful.

Is the Higgs boson real matter or a concept?

Fisherman

he lifts his head

sniffs

sea air

scent of rain

tide turns

stares

beyond

what he knew

is gone

and no one

followed on