01AUG20: Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare) -- BBC iPlayerProduction set at the end of WW1. The music was excellent, Michelle Terry's Beatrice especially good: discussion included the absence of mothers, and whether
Pride and Prejudice is Much Ado fanfic.
08AUG20: Richard II (Shakespeare) -- Swinging the LensProduction with all-female cast from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. I missed this at the Wanamaker Theatre but found it impressive, though the sound quality was variable. Adjoa Andoh's Richard was fiercer than usual, and also exhibited more nobility than in some productions: also, I felt, a more sympathetic take on the character. And, being more familiar with Marlowe's
Edward II than when I last saw this play, I spotted many parallels.
15AUG20 Inception -- Greenwich PictureHouseIn a real cinema! I think there were four other people at the midday showing. I still love this film and it was so nice to be immersed in the cinematic experience. (Very depressing ads though, mostly for charities, mostly COVID-inflected.)
15AUG20 The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare) -- BBC iPlayerI really didn't like this production -- it felt rather amateurish, but without the frisson of a live performance -- though the music was great and Makram J Khoury as Shylock was amazing. The Duke of Venice was played by a woman, which somewhat undermined Portia's cross-dressing. And it isn't a pleasant play: the antisemitism is vile. Hard to see how to redeem that aspect of it.
22AUG20: Hamlet (Shakespeare) -- BBC iPlayerMostly-black cast, with Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet creating graffiti'd backdrops and being generally much more likeable than the usual mopey teen. The dialogue flowed nicely, the madness was portrayed realistically and without scenery-chewing, and the Polonius family were foregrounded a little more -- their happiness and normality a nice contrast to the royals.
26AUG20 TENET -- Greenwich PictureHouseFirst new film for ages! And quite a spectacular one, with exotic locales and Bondesque action sequences. Robert Pattinson was pleasingly louche: I had not registered him as a serious actor before. Sir Michael Caine was unclear -- but to be fair, so were many of the other characters. Why obscure dialogue with soundtrack? Especially when that dialogue is essential to understanding the plot?
Predominantly male cast, but of the three or four female characters with dialogue, one was the awesome Dimple Kapadia, and another was Elizabeth Debicki being cool and awesome.
Like so many of Nolan's works, it didn't completely make sense on first viewing, so we saw it again (29AUG20, Greenwich IMAX) which was a deeply unpleasant experience because of lack of social distancing / health protocols in that cinema. (People, possibly from another showing, entered en masse just before the film started, and sat where they liked. Near us. UGH.)
Enjoyable, but I didn't love it nearly as much as
Inception.
30AUG20 Jerwood Young Artists Concert, GlyndebourneFirst live music for ages! This was a short concert by four soloists (soprano Madison Nonoa-Horsefield, mezzo soprano Emma Kerr, baritone Huw Montague Rendall and tenor Frederick Jones) with piano accompaniment. Especially struck by Montague Rendall, who had immense presence. Imagine my joy when instead of the scheduled Wagner aria he performed 'Largo al factotum' by Rossini.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
