Entering the Classical World

Heffers Classics Forum, Cambridge. November 2014.

This is the third Classics Forum that we have been to. I blogged about the first back in 2012 but missed mentioning last year's for some reason.

This one was possibly the best yet, between 10am and 6pm we heard presentations from 12 great speakers talking about all manner of things connected to the classical world - from atheism to how to manage a slave and all points in between.

Each speaker had 20 minutes to talk about their ideas or new books and I can say with all honesty that there wasn't a bad speaker or dull topic all day.  In addition to this there was also a 'balloon debate' during which 5 speakers championed a literary work from the classical world and we as the audience had to decide which ones we'd throw from the balloon in order to save the best. This year we saved Cicero but I'm not entirely sure if that was because we thought losing him would be the worst thing going or if his supporter was just so nice and funny that we saved his hero as favour to him.  Great fun!

I've come away with a reading list as long as my arm but as Mr Shakespeare used so many influences from the classical world in his work I feel that the day really helped round out my studies.

Here's hoping that next year's festival doesn't clash with an astronaut visit...

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Three

Pitcairn, Shakespeare's Globe, London. October 2014.

I'm just back from another of my epic trips to London. This two day stay saw me take in three exhibitions, three plays and a 'setting the scene' talk at The Globe!

I'd enticed a new friend to London with me this time and before we went to the Globe he suggested a visit to see the Magna Carta exhibition at London's Guildhall.  The display was small but we still managed to spend ages looking at the document and trying to understand what it was all about.  We came to the conclusion that it was a wonderful piece of propaganda that seemed to be offering the common man a lot of things but that in actual fact it was firmly maintaining the status quo and protecting the rich! The one surprise for me was how protected women were in the document and how progressive society was towards us.
After this we also visited the Roman Amphitheatre buried below, and again although small was fascinating.  I shall go back and explore other areas of the building in the future.

Pitcairn in the afternoon was another surprise.  Reviews for this had been decidedly lukewarm and I was apprehensive - was my run of great new writing at the Globe about to be broken?

Absolutely not - from the very start I loved the play, the story, the acting and the use of space.  I wasn't hugely up on my historical knowledge of Pitcairn, Fletcher Christian, Captain Bligh and the Bounty but the story was so clear that this never became an issue, without resorting to too much back story narration I understood everything clearly.

My theatre companion is more knowledgeable in this part of history and he also agreed that this was a good imagining of what could have happened and neither of us spotted the twist in the story and the very funny denouement at the end. One element of the plot was very Enid Blyton but such was the story that it just added to my enjoyment. I was impressed that even a play about the Mutiny on the Bounty could get in the obligatory dig against the French!

The play was a bit rude, lewd and crude and I can see why some might not like it but for me it was a great piece of entertainment that made me think and also made me want to know more about the history around this version.  I also adored the jig at the end becoming a South Sea Haka.