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.