Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 February 2007 15:55:29
Ok, so we weren't in the company we intended to be, but a good weekend was had anyway.
The north was indeed frozen & so just as the train ploughed on from Euston my mobile went with the news that the meet was being called off due to driving conditions. Being v. snug on a train I didn't quite appreciate the wider conditions until I got off said train, at which point I fully understood and was glad that everybody was safe and well rather than risking getting mashed in pursuit of chocolate.
Anyway it was decided by myself and a.n.other that we would head off to Cadbury World anyway as we were up there. It was an excellent day out and really informative about the social history side aswell as the chocolate side.
In the evening Third Party and myself headed off to Birmingham Rep to see Kneehigh Theatre Company's production of Cymbeline . It is not one of Shakespeare's more famous plays, possibly because it has quite a complicated plot which is difficult to categorise; part tragedy & part comedy. This production was top class and whilst I was too lazy to be part of the standing ovation which some of the audience saw fit to give, (& that for Shakespeare in regional theatre gives you an idea of the calibre of the performance), I thought it was gob smacking.
The key to it was the way it had been adapted to be modern yet thoroughly Shakespearean and the way that the producer had used the interplay between tragedy and comedy in a way which was very clever. The cast were a very talented bunch and I was particularly impressed by the actress who was playing Pisanio, the maid, during the scene when she was supposed to kill her mistress (although in good Shakespearean and biblical fashion a wild animal was used instead).
The final thing I thought was interesting though was the way the production highlighted how archaic in someways film censorship laws are. Third Party came with me and enjoyed the production and neither I or anybody else had no problem with her viewing the content, which was in some places suggestive and in others contained various expressive terms, including the F word, in context. Yet if it had been a film rather than theatre she wouldn't have been able to view the same content, because it would have almost certainly have been a 15 certificate.