Micro Review 29

 

Darwin's Dragons by Lindsay Galvin (Chicken House Ltd.)

Copy loaned to me by the KentishBookBoy

As predicted last year when my nephew and I were reading and reviewing together the time has come where he has fallen in love with a book so much he was insistent I read - and he even lent me his treasured copy.

I feel a bit bad as shortly after I saw KBB and he lent me the book a whole new raft of reading for a project came up and Darwin's Dragons slipped down my to read pile for a while. However a wet and stormy weekend (and a text from KBB) made me abandon everything else and just settle down with this book on a Sunday afternoon.

Well I am kicking myself for not having read the books sooner as I did proceed to read the book from cover to cover during the afternoon and I found myself swept away with Galvin's story telling - the book was so visual that like all the best books as I was reading I also had a 'movie' in my mind.

The book takes Darwin's trip on HMS Beagle and his visit to the Galapagos Islands as a starting point, and the main character is his young  assistant Syms Covington. A storm sees Mr Darwin fall overboard from a rowboat and Syms then saves him but is swept away as he does so. Landing on an unexplored, volcanic, island Syms's adventures continue his life is saved repeatedly by a lizard he names Farthing. In an exciting volcanic eruption Syms and Farthing save some eggs from a lava tube and then as they escape the eruption they are rescued by the Beagle.

The rest of the book is about the return to England after the full Voyage of the Beagle and then the struggle to get their ideas accepted and in keeping the lizards alive in the bleak Victorian London climate.

This summary does give just the bare elements of the story and there is so much more to it than I've explained here - and it really is quite fantastical at times, although I just managed to suspend belief and to go with the flow.

The modern day environmental message is conveyed gently and not too obviously, and the other message of getting people to believe in what you are telling them is also gentle and not too didactic.

As I came to the end of the book I wanted to know more about the Voyage of the Beagle which is always a good sign, and I had overcome my initial thoughts that I wanted the book to be the historical story and not the fantasy one. A day or so on from finishing the story I am still thinking about it (and in a positive way) so that for me marks it out as a good book!

Huge thanks to KBB for lending me this book - what shall I read next though?

Theatre 2016: Review Six

Ellen Terry with Eileen Atkins, The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe Theatre, London. February 2016.

In the first year of my MA one module I studied was all about the history of Shakespeare in performance and for my final essay I chose to write about Ellen Terry.  She was the one of the leading Shakespearean actresses of the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth and very influential both through her family and also her own talent. In addition to acting she also wrote essays about Shakespeare's women and really brought them to life, she was an early supporter of the woman's suffrage movement too and made public appearances to raise money for the cause.

In her own life time she performed these essays to audiences and after her death they were collected together and published. It is these essays that are brought back to life by Atkins in this 70 minute monologue and it is hard to believe that they are 100 years old for they sound as fresh and worthy of study now as they were then.

Atkins is playing Terry from the moment she walks on stage and the lectures are given so naturally and conversationally that I was held spellbound from the first word. The small biographical details that are also woven in to the lectures were a delight, as I'd studied Terry in some depth there were no new anecdotes but hearing 'her' give them was a delight and hearing the audience response to them was also a joy.

Atkins managed a virtuoso performance switching from Terry to numerous Shakespearean roles with just a twitch of the shoulders or a facial expression and some of here scenes were easier to follow than actual performances.

I'm so glad that this was revived in this Winter season at the Globe as I was very sorry to have missed it last time round, I do think that it is quite specialised - you do have to know the plays quite well to follow some of the trains of thought but Atkins has such a splendid voice that just sitting and listening to the words would also be a treat.

Having seen Simon Callow's one man Shakespeare a few years ago and thoroughly enjoying that I have to say that I think this was better. I'm not sure if it was because the subject, Shakespeare's women, chimed more with me or if it is because I now know the plays so much better but the scant 70 minutes left me wanting more and I hope that in this special anniversary year that this show has been recorded and that it will be broadcast so that many more people can see a wonderful performance.

 Smallhythe House and barn theatre, Kent - Ellen Terry's home

Ellen Terry's costume for Lady Macbeth - it is made from beetle wings to get the iridescent shine