Cycling and theatre

[nineveh_uk]

The Tour de France starts on Saturday, and I am looking forward to a long weekend and watching the race – or the five seconds or so as the peloton whizzes past. I am not particularly interested in cycling, but it will be An Event. I am recording the two Yorkshire days so as to enjoy the scenery at my leisure.* I could really do with a long weekend. Work has been very intensive this term, with a couple of very challenging things going on. I feel I’ve performed well in them, and have had strong feedback, but it has had its moments and I am in need of a break. Though probably not as much as the person who yesterday backed a scaffolding lorry into the stone gatepost to the drive outside my office building.

I finally managed to catch up with the broadcast of the Globe’s The Duchess of Malfi on BBC iPlayer the other night, and am inevitably kicking myself for not managing to see it live, because it was terrific. The Cardinal wasn’t my favourite – the actor’s facial features reminded me rather unfortunately of Tim Roth as Cardinal Richelieu,** which distracted me from a strong performance – but both the Duchess and Bosola were very engaging, and Ferdinand... Basically, David Dawson as Ferdinand was my platonic ideal of Ferdinand, with febrile eyes, pinched and haunted face, and general air of twitchy and pitiful psychopathy. Nor was the incest underplayed.*** Have some extracts here.

*Must make sure there is space on the DVR.
**Doubly unfair as I have never seen Roth as Richelieu, I just know he was in that recent, dire film.
*** The ‘strong-thigh’d bargeman’ line gets a mention in not a few reviews.

Comments

[antisoppist]

When the Tour of Britain came through here the most entertaining bit was all the accompanying stuff driving through beforehand and everyone cheered everything, even lone ordinary cyclists who just happened to be pottering along oblivious. It was also entertaining following it on Twitter to see how near they had got, especially when accompanying journalists suddenly lost mobile coverage (which meant we knew exactly how far they had got). The actual race coming through was blink and you'd miss it, though it is good to have seen first hand quite how fast they go. Perhaps it is better if it is more strung out with lots of stragglers but that doesn't seem to be how cycling races work. I hope the weather is good.

Re. your * I attempted to delete things off the box the other night but someone has password protected the Sarah and Duck Christmas Special.

[nineveh_uk]

Alas, we are only about 12 minutes from the start* so it sounds like they will still be bunched together. We are planning to be in place for the early drive-through, though.

someone has password protected the Sarah and Duck Christmas Special
I suppose that I admire their commitment!

*Because getting anywhere farther afield would require driving massive long ways round.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I have never seen the Duchess of Malfi, but it is irretrievably linked in my mind with Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I shall have to read Sleeping Murder.

I love the Duchess of Malfi. It goes off the rails a bit towards the end, it has everything you could want in a Renaissance tragedy: corrupt churchmen, decadent aristocrats, forbidden love (multiple sorts), barely-suppressed incest, lycanthropy, madmen, conflicted murderers, good people destroyed by a sinful world, and lots of death. Oh, and there's some decent text in there as well.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

I am still quite miffed that despite doing a whole Renaissance literature paper at A level, we were the year that didn't get either The Duchess of Malfi or John Donne. The Revenger's Tragedy almost made up for it.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I got Hamlet, Winter's Tale, and Dr Faustus. I wish we could have had John Donne instead of Wilfred Owen, but alas! Winter's Tale was a bad A-level choice, because it was boring, but it wasn't hard, and Faustus was great, so I don't iobject too much.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Also Persuasion made up for Wuthering Heights, though I was alone in class in thinking so.

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm somewhat frustrated by the fact that although the race is coming very close to where I live, I won't be able to get near it (for obvious work reasons...) - but there's to be a big screen by the town hall. Assuming the weather's half decent, it should be rather fun.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That is very frustrating - I hope you get to watch some on the screen without being rained on at least.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Peter DVRs every bike race in existence so there's a bit of existential agony at the start of each Tour when he has to decide what to delete from the recorder. I kindly remind him that no normal human being re-watches year old bicycle races from beginning to end and it's OK to erase a few and then strategically retreat from the room :) He used to race on a very high amateur level so...

It'd be fun to watch them go by live though, even if it is just for a minute or two!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It is possible I have quite a lot of olympic cross-country skiing on the DVR... I am not deleting it until I have watched it while ironing on pre-season November weekends. And I don't eveh have the excuse of a high level!