London Literature Festival 2013: Claire Tomalin

The London Literature Festival is coming up soon - running from May 21 through June at the Southbank Centre. Click the link for more information on the program.

One of the highlights will be five lectures given by well-known biographer, Claire Tomalin. 

To date, she has chronicled the lives of these famous writers:

• Charles Dickens: A Life

• Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man

• Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self

• Jane Austen: A Life

• Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life

• Shelley and His World

• The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens

• The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft 

Tomalin will be presenting 5 lectures:
"Jane Austen and the Making of Pride and Prejudice" - Tuesday, May 28
"Thomas Hardy: Wessex Height and London Lights" - Wednesday, May 29
"Samuel Pepys: The First Modern Hero" - Thursday, May 30
"Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria: An Odd Couple" - Sunday, June 2
"Mary Wollstonecraft: Speaking Up for Her Sex" - Monday, June 3

Whew! A busy schedule for a busy lady!

Other notable speakers at this year's festival: Rupert Everett, Audrey Niffenegger, Lionel Shriver, Barbara Kingsolver...

An Audience with Helen Mirren

The other day I went to see the Queen - Helen Mirren playing Elizabeth II in The Audience at The Gielgud (running until June 15). 

This new play by Peter Morgan reunites some of the creative team (including Morgan) behind the so-called "Tony Blair trilogy" (The Deal, The Queen and The Special Relationship). Mirren memorably played Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, winning both the BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Actress that year. She really is the queen of queens, having played Elizabeth I and II (apparently the only actress to ever have done so), as well as Queen Charlotte in The Madness of King George.

As Morgan explains in his introduction to the play (available now on Amazon and Kindle), the idea behind The Audience came from The Queen. The Queen, where possible, holds a private audience with the prime minister, where they are free to discuss issues of national and personal interest in complete confidence. This tradition (which, the play emphasises, is not set in the constitution, even if Britain had one) apparently dates back to regular meetings between Elizabeth II's father and Winston Churchill. 

Since then, the Queen has met with 12 prime ministers, and the play tries to imagine what might have gone on behind closed doors. Morgan freely admits that he has made very specific decisions in which prime minsters to portray, including some of the more well-known (Churchill, Thatcher, Major) and some who were known to be favourites (Wilson, Callaghan). The play encapsulates PMs from Churchill right up to the present David Cameron, but does not follow a chronological order.

As expected, Helen Mirren gives a truly bravura performance. Her constant costume changes (many of which take place on stage) are astonishing in themselves. I have never seen an actress receive so many standing ovations, to the point where I couldn't even see the stage from where I was sitting in the stalls! Richard McCabe is also great as Wilson, and the pair rightfully deserve their Olivier Award nominations.

The play is surprisingly very funny, with the audience (many of whom were of a mature enough age to be able to recognise most of the PMs and references) constantly in stitches, but also in tears, especially when Elizabeth II has conversations with her child self about the challenges and loneliness of the top job:

YOUNG ELIZABETH: To have to sit there like a stuffed animal and listen politely to mad people for hours on end - 

ELIZABETH: That's one version of it. A kinder one, perhaps, would be that you're allowing complicated people, over-complicated people to measure themselves against something unchanging. Permanent. Simple.

It was particularly poignant to see the play two days after the death of Margaret Thatcher. Witness this exchange between Thatcher and the Queen:

THATCHER: My responsibility for the time I have in office is to put sentimentality to one side and look after this country's interests...it is my judgement that to focus on our economy and our standing in the world would be best for Britain and incidentally the profile of the person that personifies it.

ELIZABETH: You, Prime Minister.

THATCHER: No, you, Ma'am. You'll be here having these conversations long after I've gone.

The sets are handsome, and include real archival footage projected on to the stage. Some have been a bit disdainful about the inclusion of real live corgis in the production. On this occasion, they proved delightfully diverting, especially as one of them ran off in the wrong direction!

For those of you in the UK and overseas who will not get to see the play, it will be shown via National Theatre Live. Coming soon to a cinema near you - don't miss it!

"Screw your courage to the sticking place" and see James McAvoy play Macbeth

It seems that tickets to see James McAvoy play Macbeth at the Trafalgar Studios (until April 27) are so hot they are being sold for £100 each - double the face value!

A shot of the program

Fortunately, we booked well in advance and did pay face value for seats in the second row which, if you've been to the intimate Trafalgar Studios before, you can appreciate that while you have an excellent view of the actors and the action, you are also in very real danger of being spat on! My friend Vanessa was justifiably worried that James McAvoy might go one better and vomit on us, as vomiting was a requisite part of his performance in this production! I won't spoil it for those of you who might be going to see it by explaining why...

Let's just say that if you have a weak stomach, McAvoy's intense Macbeth (and we got very good views of his steely blue eyes gazing fixedly into the audience), together with the spit, vomit, blood and guts may not be for you. If none of these things bother you, however, then this production is a must see.

Directed by Jamie Lloyd and nominated for two Olivier awards, it is set in a futuristic, dystopian Scottish wasteland, with the witches in gas masks rising out of hazy smoke (so therefore also not so good if you're asthmatic). Interestingly, all the actors speak with Scottish accents (some more successfully than others), adding to the authenticity and making the play more menacing. 

I personally felt that there was a lack of chemistry between McAvoy's Macbeth and Claire Foy's Lady Macbeth (though I loved her in Little Dorrit, The Promise and Upstairs, Downstairs), although Vanessa strongly disagreed, pointing out that Lady Macbeth was a difficult character to play as she is given little introduction and is not very likeable. On the other hand, Allison McKenzie was a stand out as Lady Macduff, and her loving interactions with her young son made her slow, torturous death all the more agonising.

It seems the curse of the Scottish play continues - McAvoy has so far had to interrupt his performance at least 3 times: to help an audience member who collapsed, to berate a man for filming the show on a mobile phone, and to tell some drunken ladies to "Shut it" for talking loudly during the Banquo banquet scene!

"The Brilliant Bronte Sisters" with Sheila Hancock

In a recent episode of the ITV show “Perspectives”, “The Brilliant Bronte Sisters”, the actress Sheila Hancock explores the lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, and how people and events shaped their work. 

Hancock does not really present much that many devotees and fans would not already know (who else would stay up to watch a documentary about the Brontes at 10pm on a Sunday evening?). Most know that Charlotte’s infatuation with her teacher, Monsieur Heger, inspired her passionate but reserved heroine, Jane Eyre. We have already seen documentaries with presenters running, hair flying, across the Yorkshire moors crying desperately for Heathcliff in an effort to emulate Emily’s wildness (though Hancock may well be the oldest!). We are aware that Anne’s proximity to her alcoholic and dissolute brother, Branwell, provided the prototype for the abusive Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 

But two things stand out in Hancock’s piece. A cameraman zooms in on a full stop in a letter from Charlotte to Monsieur Heger, revealing that it is a tiny love heart, effectively illustrating Charlotte’s tormented, unrequited love for her tutor. This excites and astonishes Hancock and the curator of the Bronte Parsonage Museum. The second affecting moment is when Hancock reflects on the loneliness Charlotte must have felt as the sole surviving Bronte child, with no more siblings with whom to create new worlds or share story ideas around the table. Hancock sheds tears, recalling her own despair when her husband of 28 years, the actor John Thaw, passed away. 

These two incidents prove that you do not need to be an expert or academic to make a moving and stimulating documentary.

If you missed it, you may be able to catch it on ITV Player!

Foyle-d Again

Yes, the intrepid war-time sleuth is back!

The eighth series of the absorbing Foyle's War has reached its satisfying conclusion here in the UK. This series (supposedly the last, according to creator Anthony Horowitz) is set in the Cold War, complete with a new and austere Cold War-esque theme tune.

Foyle comes up against new nemeses, including unhelpful British government officials (Miss Pierce is played with delightful severity by Ellie Haddington), Soviet spies, ex-Nazis he tries (though not very hard) to protect, and his former driver Sam Stewart, now Sam Wainwright, who unwittingly threatens to undermine his work by abusing his authority to help her MP husband with sensitive government material. Fortunately, the post-war years have not blunted Foyle's sharp intuition - there seems to be no case too difficult for this police detective to solve!

As Horowitz is convinced this series will be the last, he has revealed in the Daily Mail that the character of Sam is based on his real-life nanny, Norah FitzGerald, who was a WAAF driver in World War II. Tragically, she became a nanny because three of her potential fiancees were killed during the war. You can read more about her fascinating story here.

Sadly, Acorn have yet to upload an up-to-date Foyle's War website. You can find an old Masterpiece one here. For those of you in the UK, catch up episodes on ITV Player.

Review of Teacher Man (2005) by Frank McCourt

Completed April 9, 2013

It is with a sense of sadness that I put Teacher Man back on the bookshelf. A recommendation by two great teachers whom I admire, it is a teaching memoir both laugh-out-loud funny and profoundly moving. McCourt's accounts of his experiences teaching high school students in New York touches on so many aspects of humanity - both of himself and his students. 

McCourt is a storyteller. In the midst of despair and in the face of apathetic and, at times, disruptive pupils, the only way he could get through lessons was to tell them stories from his own life growing up in both America and Ireland, his own experiences of poverty and cultural confusion. In return, his students tell their stories - the euphoria of cheering for the moon landing on television only to find your father has died in the next room; a Jewish boy who wants to be a pig farmer but faces strong opposition from his Rabbi father.

Other McCourt teaching strategies I would love to steal: getting students to analyse (their own) forged parent notes as examples of good persuasive writing; studying recipes, setting them to music and singing them in class, accompanied by classmates on various instruments, then writing your own restaurant review of local eateries (including the school cafeteria); doing a human continuum with the class in response to the question "Would you tell 'Hansel and Gretel' to your children?".

I am sad that Frank McCourt is no longer around as I would have loved to meet him and hear him tell more of his wonderful and poignant stories. His love for teaching English as a subject and a life skill, together with his true compassion for, and connection with, his students, makes for an absorbing and inspiring read.

I am also sad that during the months I have been reading Teacher Man my own enthusiasm for teaching has waxed and waned. Although I am a passionate advocate of teachers and the teaching profession, even I have to admit that I am exhausted. As I always say, teaching is truly a work of heart and is most definitely not for the faint-hearted. Who would willingly lay their reputation on the line on a daily basis to walk into a classroom alone to face 30 teenagers, some of whom have come to school burdened by life and are not in a place where they will readily receive an education? Who would willingly take on the mammoth task of planning up to 5 periods a day of educational, engaging and meaningful lessons, while trying to fulfil curriculum requirements, fearful of constant and stringent scrutiny?

As I stand at this crossroads of my teaching career - do I continue on the rocky, uncertain path or do I head for higher ground - McCourt's sage advice remains in my mind: "Find what you love and do it."

If you are, have ever been, or harbour any thoughts of being a teacher, you MUST read this book!