Hamlet's Apocalypse ...

... is an allegorical interpretation of the play which the Dark Lady Players will be producing at the Manhattan Theater Source in New York on the 7 November (details). According to the email which was sent to me, the production:
"Argues that the religious allegories in the plays identified by Linda Hoff and others, are not only anti-Christian but Jewish,and support the Bassano Theory of Authorship."
Critical analysis and justification here and offered below in note form by Alexandra Cohen-Spiegler who will be playing the Dane:



This shot of the nunnery scene gives some indication of how this will be interpreted on stage:

"was caught eating Jabba's food"

Film I think this survey speaks for itself:
"Funny, we know more about Salacious Crumb, Jabba the Hutt's little monkey lizard from Return of the Jedi, than we do about the life of William Shakespeare. We know that he has a middle name. We know the names of the people in Jabba's employ who dislike him and have tried to kill him. We know that he often danced to the music of Max Rebo's band. We're not 100% sure that William Shakespeare was a real person, but we know exactly when and how Salacious Crumb stowed away on Jabba's ship, was caught eating Jabba's food, and forced to perform as a court jester or be killed. And you thought he was just a shrieky little loser. He supposedly has a middle name - even Harry Truman didn't have one of those.
This is no joke.

doing the rounds

TV Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's Sherlock begins on BBC One 25th July at 9pm which is a great timeslot (even if this feels like a Winter series). The official page is up, with trailer, and I haven't yet discounted some kind of post-modern reason for Holmes to be in the 21st century, for there not to be some historical connection ala Jekyll.

Benedict Cumberbatch (who plays the detective) is doing the rounds:
"Sherlock was, he says, a very enjoyable part, even if he did end up with pneumonia from the strain. "There's a great charge you get from playing him, because of the volume of words in your head and the speed of thought – you really have to make your connections incredibly fast. He is one step ahead of the audience, and of anyone around him with normal intellect. They can't quite fathom where his leaps are taking him. Zip zip zip. But you catch me in the car on the way home after and I am, 'Whoahhh!'"
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Cumberbatch'll only be in his mid-thirties when Matt Smith'll be thinking about leaving ...

Public Art Collections in North West England: Museum of Wigan Life (nee The History Shop)



Museums So to Wigan, the last venue listed in Edward Morris’s book Public Art Collection In North-West England (though not my last journey by any means). Something of a revisit, I was last at The History Shop (as it was called then) about five years ago. My most vivid memory was how this single room gallery had been split in two. Near the door the walls had been painted in burgundy and this was were five or six permanent collection items were on display, but the rest was a contemporary display space, at the time of my last visit showing some kind of community exhibition.

The reason for my tardiness in returning to such an accessible place was a year long refurbishment project, renovating the building and creating the Museum of Wigan Life (the details of which can be found in this entertaining blog). Now there is a permanent display to accompany the local history library (which you can see for yourself in a video from the architect’s website) with a range of objects from the town’s history, generally focusing in its sporting, political and culinary histories, very by the people, for the people, and vitally important at a time when local identities are being eroded by amongst other things, the commercial cloning of city centres,

What isn’t now on display is much from the fine art permanent collection, but the four paintings and one bust are for once pertinent to the history of the building and the local area around the museum. The most prominent painting is by James Archer, “Thomas Taylor”, of a rather austere Victorian gentleman. As Edward writes, Wigan has never really had an art gallery, but often displayed paintings in this library building which was bank rolled to the tune of £12,000 in 1878 by Taylor, a local cotton entrepreneur and sometime mayor. Taylor did not leave is vast collection of paintings to Wigan, instead opening up a private gallery in Oxfordshire when he moved there later.

Taylor also appears in bust form by Jules Dalau, whose work is most often seen in the palaces of Europe. A neoclassicist, Dalau was most interested in creating as realistic a depiction as possible, which accounts for why the former mayor’s features almost seem ready to move, its eyes almost twinkling. The piece was created during a time of exile for the artist, who in the 1870s had taken refuge in England, after publicly identifying himself as part of the Paris Commune, and giving a life sentence in absentia when the next government moved in, only returning after an amnesty in 1879.

Someone who did grant a rather large bequest, coincidentally £12,000, was Joseph Taylor Winnard, who’s representation by Charles Mercier is next door. He was a surgeon to the Wigan Poor Law Union and is shown sombrely leaning against a table on which sit the texts of record. After the opening of the building in 1878, Captain Mercier put on an exhibition of his works to raise funds for the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary and you could imagine this portrait at the centre, the reminder of an absent friend.

The other most recent purchase on display is Edward Haytley’s Sir Roger and Lady Bradshaig from 1746, which startlingly demonstrates that despite Wigan’s gloomier post-industrial reputation, it was once the scene of great wealth, with doublets and corsets and stately homes. Because of this, the painting stands out against the rest of a display that largely concerns itself with a working class diaspora but an important addition because the Bradshaigs were the Hapsbergs of Wigan, members of their family becoming local mayors and statesmen and a legacy stretching back across many centuries.

The only other "art work" (as such) is a 37 foot long painted mural by the late Gerald Richards stretching across bottom the mezzanine floor that houses the local history library. This was commissioned in 1996 during the celebration of the 750th anniversary of the Charter and was installed when the original History Library opened (source), and suits perfectly the new exhibition space, the visitor is able to glance up and see how the piece of history they may be seeing fits into the overall chronology of the borough.

Employing a grid structure, it displays the architectural history of Wigan from medieval castles to municipal buildings to monuments, the red clay brick which is evident throughout the town given due prominence. First settled in the 7th century, Wigan eventually became ratified as a borough in 1246 following the issue of a Charter by King Henry III of England, whose portrait and crest also appear and completes what’s probably the most impressive work on display. As this obiturary explains, Rickards had a life long fascination with buildings and that's reflected in the accuracy of his rendering.

It’s perhaps understandable with the limited space that Wigan would decide to concentrate on the unifying subject of their collection. But it is a shame that so much of this small collection is in storage, especially since I’d quite looked forward to seeing William Blake Richmond’s classical works, which Edward laments were in storage for ages until Wigan took responsibility for them in the middle of the last century. Now Richmond’s interpretation of Theseus, Prometheus and Diana are back there again. But you can make an appointment. Let’s mark this as a potential revisit, perhaps, shall we?

[With thanks to Julie Baker, Heritage Assistant at the Museum Of Wigan Life for background information on Gerald Rickards's life and mural.]

Metacrisis?

Liverpool Life Crisis. The yellow wheelie bins have gone.

From the field!

The wire mesh thing remains.

In the field!

Confusion spreads throughout the kingdom.

Metacrisis?

Updated! 16/7/2010 Yellow wheelie bins have returned. They're now lining the pathway near the bowling green. This is becoming strange.

the Neil Young covers album

Music Jewel's new album Sweet and Wild (spotify link) is fine. Largely a continuance of the project rather than something especially innovative, the kind of record that works well at the close of business if a bit of country crossover doesn't make you want to rip your throat out. Personally, I wish she'd get around to the Neil Young covers album which she's destined to record, since the ship has clearly sailed on seeing anything as innovative as 0304 (spotify link again) again.

Meanwhile, she's turning up at karaoke bars and Susan Boyling the clientèle:


As @jkottke says, instant classic, even though I suspect I'm the only person in the UK who knows all of the words. And sang along ...

end game

Liverpool Life Those yellow wheelie bins which were left in the field at Sefton Park (after but probably not because of my litter dismay) have been moving around a lot in the fortnight since and employed as everything from goal posts to ... no ... mainly goal posts.

When we got home from Costco this afternoon, all but one of them had been knocked over.

At some point in the past hour a wire mesh thingy has been put in the centre of the grass.

Best we can ascertain, it's to keep the wheelie bins in so that they remain upright.

The end game is finally upon us.

But thanks to the council for at least trying to keep the park tidy.

Horse Man


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"surely being 'pretty good' is not enough"

Music Girls Can't Catch were a girl group, or to paraphrase Almost Famous, a "mid level band struggling with their own limitations". They weren't awful, but like Girfriend, Hepburn, Bellefire, Thunderbugs and The Alice Band, the public largely ignored them because they had the kind of name that drama writers give fake pop bands and they didn't quite fit on The Spice Girls, Sugababes, B*Witched, All Saints or in their case Girls Aloud axis. Trust PopJustice to write the best obituary:
"The idealist says this: "surely being 'pretty good' is not enough". Well maybe. Clearly, pop should aim for the stars. Clearly, no pop artist should aim to be average. But it misses the point to claim that the band were bad (or terrible) simply because they were not extraordinary. Not every artist can be Girls Aloud or Lady Gaga, nor SHOULD every artist do what those acts have done. Girls Cant Catch were just a pop group, and their songs were just pop songs. And really, that's fine. Pop doesn't always need to smash boundaries. Here's the news: if you only enjoy pop music that breaks pop's boundaries, you are not really a pop fan."
Perhaps the buying public have decided that pop music doesn't need variety in a world when five different Beyonce tracks can be in the chart at the same time. Whilst we're not at all on the subject, Eliza Doolittle's a big fan of She & Him and Lily Allen isn't she?

here we go again ...

TV One of my favourite largely forgotten shows is/was North Square, the legal drama put out by Channel 4 at the turn of the century when they still cared about creating home grown prime time drama (with due respect to Misfits). The writing was sharp, the casting superb and bits of it were shot in Liverpool. The whole thing is now available to watch on 4oD, though the wikipedia has a perfectly good synopsis:
North Square is an award winning British television drama series written by Peter Moffat and broadcast by Channel 4 at the end of 2000. Starring an ensemble cast including Phil Davis, Rupert Penry-Jones, Helen McCrory and Kevin McKidd [...] a group of young, irreverent barristers all hoping to make their mark in the legal profession at a Leeds defense chambers.
It was also written by Moffat has clearly decided that he had far more material than the original ten episodes would allow because, well, here we go again ...
"Maxine Peake (Criminal Justice), Rupert Penry-Jones (Spooks), Natalie Dormer (The Tudors), Tom Hughes (Sex, Drugs And Rock And Roll) and Neil Stuke (Reggie Perrin) star in Silk, a thrilling new drama series for BBC One about the lives, loves and hard cases facing barristers on the front line of criminal law, written by Bafta award-winning writer Peter Moffat (Criminal Justice, North Square)."
Penry-Jones back too playing a character who's "funny, gifted and dangerous". Again. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to this, and hoping its half as good as the original. Even if it doesn't have Phil Davis along for scowling purposes.

"dark future"

Commerce For all the many hundreds of Tescos which opened in Liverpool this past couple of years, the only possible site protested against was on Hope Street -- and successfully before construction began. Certainly none of them were met on opening day with the figure of a man dressed as Darth Vader as happened at Norwich's new Unthank Road Tesco store. Norwich Evening News were on the scene:
"Chris Hull, former Green county councillor and a founder member of Residents' Against Unthank Tesco (Raut), turned up dressed as Darth Vader to make the point that the store could lead to a dark future for local shops.

"Tesco chains symbolise one of the options for the future," he said. "The reason I am Darth Vader is that that's the sort of dark future where we have got the potential for even more Tescos, which is an unsustainable future."
The tiny handwritten "I [heart] Tesco" sign pinned to his front is a special touch. If he wanted to take it to its obvious conclusion, he should get the 501st Legion to volunteer to pack people's bags for them [via].

for fans of Lillian Gish

Music The promo for She & Him's new single, Thieves, is an exquisite homage to silent film with service for fans of Lillian Gish, Georges Méliès and a touch of Murnau, retaining all the nitrate luminescence:


She & Him - Thieves from Merge Records on Vimeo.

against his better judgement

Books The author Tod Goldberg currently has in publication a tie-in novel for Burn Notice and recently received an email from a fan of the show who took Tunbridge Wells at the swearing. Goldberg against his better judgement to reply. The short exchange is posted here and underscores once again the curious mental dislocation some viewers have between what they see and what they hear.

Bob Lentle.


red lentles, originally uploaded by bluebite000.

Charity Not having been in a school for the best part of eighteen years, I don't know how benevolent they are now. Each Tuesday our old school would be visited by a representative from a charity who would give a talk on their works and then a box or bag would be passed around when the register was taken on a Wednesday with the final amount totted up and read out on a Friday. Most often it would amount to forty or fifty pounds.

The school charities committee would meet at the end of each term to select the causes who appear in the schedule after the holidays with each school form sending a representative chosen by their classmates. This was supposed to change, but with me being a bit Rushmore when it came to clubs and societies (unless it had the word team in the title and involved running), I ended up being on the committee right through my school career.

The process was simple. After lunch on a given day, we'd gather in one of the classrooms with a desks pushed together and a teacher would enter and empty a box full of bumph on the table which we'd then sift through. There was no rhyme or reason to this. Sometimes the charity chose themselves -- one of the biggest collections ever was for Live Aid and I think Children In Need was another default selection (I think in a week when they couldn't have a charity speaker for some reason).

But some of the choices were, perhaps, morally dubious. We always chose Friends of the Earth, not to buff up the school's environmental credentials but because the representative they sent was called Bob Lentle and wasn't that amusing in a "name fits their ideology" kind of way. We'd sometimes select a cause based on how glossy their leaflet was (which is inverse to how in need they probably were) though quite often it would be entirely at random, just pick the first six or seven off the top because it meant the meeting would be adjourned quickly.

Some of this I'm less proud of now than I could be, but nonetheless all of the charities we selected were good causes of one sort or another and it taught us kids the value of giving. Which continues now. Amnesty International are still debiting my month contribution (after a chugger ambush) (she had a nice smile) and seem to spend half my income in charity shops on dvds and books which isn’t entirely philanthropic (since I receive goods in return) but it is what they’re there for.

All of which is a preamble to me noticing that the BBC is advertising for people to join a committee to look over requests for funds from charities for money raised by Children in Need which seems to follow the same methodology as us school kids. I had thought about applying based on my years of work in the sector, but they’re looking for people with “a sound understanding of the current issues facing children and young people experiencing disadvantage, a good understanding of the voluntary and statutory sectors”.

Which isn’t me. Luckily for them.

The Strawberry Thief.

TV William Gallagher on the death of Alan Plater:
"He read my first ever stab at a script, a piece called The Strawberry Thief. Still a good title. Still a rubbish script. And he said so. But he said so in such a way that I was inevitably going to pick myself up and have another go. He told me then that the stage directions I'd written had often made him laugh out loud and that I should get that into the dialogue where viewers would see it. When I did, he told me it was a great step for writerkind."

"what goes where and when."

Transport London Underground’s “secret” tube station:
"This is in fact a fully fitted out fake tube station built by London Underground on the 3rd floor of an office block in West Kensington and is used to teach new employees what goes where and when.

It is slightly surreal to go into a fairly generic office building, then on the third floor, find the entrance to a tube station – complete with fake newspaper stall and wire mesh grills.
Perhaps in hundreds of years when historians are trying piece together how we lived, they'll decide that there really was a tube station called West Ashfield.

mild to career ending peril

Sport The Vuvuzela was invented by Freddie Mac, sorry, Freddie Maake and some will be pleased to know that he went to jail for it (sort of):
"I do recommend some basic rules when it comes to using it, though – you shouldn't blow one directly into anyone's ear, for example, nor should you ever sound a vuvuzela during a country's national anthem. There has been talk of a ban, but that will never happen while I'm still alive – no government will stop it. The vuvuzela is my baby and I'd happily go to jail for it. Actually, I have been locked up already, for 20 minutes – in 1992, I took my vuvuzela to Zimbabwe, but only after falling foul of the authorities at the airport, who initially insisted I couldn't take it on to the plane."
Thank goodness that's over. I did watch but mostly listen to the World Cup final last night, and what a boring, listless affair it was, save for incidents of mild to career ending peril inflicted by the Dutch players, obviously.

"law is a noble pursuit."

Law Elizabeth Wurtzel, who recently passed her bar exam, talks about why she wants to practice law:
"Given such a wide-ranging critique of the legal profession, I am often asked why I practice law at all. As it happens, I really like my job—but I work for David Boies, who is such an original that it would probably be fun to listen to him recite his laundry list. But even if I were doing some other legal handiwork, I would still want to stick with it, because despite all the vicious jokes about attorneys—no matter how many times I hear that eleven drowning lawyers is just a good start—I actually believe law is a noble pursuit. And I don’t only mean the kind of public-interest law that is practiced by attorneys at the NAACP and the ACLU—I even mean commercial transactions and corporate litigation, the workaday work of large law firms in major cities."
And I'll remember the first time I fail at something first time, anything, that Elizabeth, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt did too. Granted I'm talking about failure to get the right job, cook an omelette or trying to work out who owns the fish (an ongoing project) but the point stands I think. Possibly.

Look at the jacket.

Film The international trailer for Woody's You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is out ...



Looks like a return to the large cast multiple storyline format we haven't seen since Melinda and Melinda, though arguably it more resembles Everyone Says I Love You in its focus on families. Entertainment Weekly said:
"The film is notable, if that’s the word, for being the first movie Allen has made in London that is every bit as bad as his most awful New York comedies, like Anything Else and Melinda and Melinda."
Considering they were two of my favourite films of noughties, if that's the standard, I'm very excited and look forward to the UK release in 2014 (presumably).

Some casting notes:

Josh Brolin is playing the Woody Allen figure. Look at the jacket. The gesticulations.

Antonio Banderas previously appeared in faux-Woody classic Miami Rhapsody.

Lucy Punch is playing a character called Charmaine. Remind me to tell you about what that name means to me some time. Her role was originally filled by Nicole Kidman. Judging by the trailer the whole thing has been re-conceived.

Anthony Hopkins's dialogue has an Interiors flavour, as does that subplot. Though obviously in a comic style.

Gemma Jones is finally able to knock "Woody Allen" film off her long list of career achievements.

This was Freida Pinto's first project after Slumdog Millionare. She seems to be filling roughly the same exotica role as Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Julia Roberts in Everyone Says I Love You.

Naomi Watts is using her Eastern Promises English accent.

Ewen Bremner returns from Match Point where he played Inspector Dowd.

Rupert Frazer returns from Scoop where he played an Antique Shop Man

Anna Friel is in the "rest of cast listed alphabetically" section. But at least she too now has a Woody Allen story.

Neil Jackson played Lucas in Flashforward.

Christian McKay gave that fantastic performance as in the title role Me & Orson Welles. So in my head Welles has finally worked with Woody. Ish.

Also ...

Who's in it from Doctor Who?

Pauline Collins as Cristal Delgiorno



Played Samantha Briggs in The Faceless Ones and Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw.

Roger Ashton-Griffiths as Jonathan



Was Mr.Garrett in Torchwood's Random Shoes

Meanwhile, 'Sleeper' House From 1973 Woody Allen Movie May Face Foreclosure.

wild implications,



Theatre Describing a play as being “ahead of its time” can have wild implications, especially if said theatrical drama was written four hundred years ago. But watching the Greenwich Theatre’s superb production of The Duchess of Malfi, it’s possible to see that John Webster apparently throws out the usual rules of cause and effect and characterisation and as B. Ifor Evans suggests in A Short History of English Drama:
"(it is) as if life itself were governed by chance, not reason, as if human beings acted from passion rather than from consistent conduct governed by consecutive thought."
The result is a radical concoction in which antagonist becomes protagonist and the audience's sympathies shift half way through against our better judgement.

Although Webster begins Malfi with former criminal Bosola's attempt to gain a pardon and show his changed demeanour and he hangs around to offer commentary, from the moment the Duchess enters he places her front and centre and the play becomes a kind of courtly romance, in which Malfi marries her clerk for love rather than money, but as is the way with such concoctions in secret because its against the expressed wishes of her two brothers, a cardinal and a duke who are consumed with spiritual but mostly financial reasons why a second union (any union) should not take place.

When Bosola is inserted into her household to spy on their sister and uncovers the truth the action, though Webster's writing retains a skein of dark humour, turns tragedy as the misguided motivations of the brothers lead Bosola to seek revenge for what they’ve tempted him to do and the person they force him to become in order to carry out their business. Rather like Hitchcock's Psycho, as well experiencing a massive genre shift, the audience finds its allegiance shift in the direction of the man they should find most repellent, but unlike Norman Bates, Webster allows Bosola to ultimately find redemption.

As Bosola, Tim Treloar is commanding. Opening the play as a kind of unreconstructed Gene Hunt figure easily brought into the conspiracy by some easy change, as he shifts from arrogant to avenger, the sweat and tears between seem to become permanently etched on his face. He’s matched by Aislin McGuckin’s attuned aristocratic Malfi whose pre-Raphaelite gait belies a complex soul; rightly, she commands the stage, her maid and various men folk like satellites drifting about her, and it's one of the rare occasions when the loyalty seems deserved rather than conferred because of her position.

But there are few weak performances. As he did with his Mosca in Volpone, Mark Hadfield exquisitely emphasises the duplicitousness of the Cardinal to especially shocking effect when his lover is crossed in a gesture which should be a blessing but becomes the binary opposite. The cold magnetism of Tim Steed’s Ferdinand makes legible why Bosola would throw in his lot even though they’re clearly very wary of one another. Edmund Kinglsey initially seems slightly uncertain in Antonio’s skin but as the character’s masculinity increases so does the strength of his performance to the point that when he discovers his wife’s fate the effect is heartbreaking.

With simple setting and “contemporary” costuming of no fixed time frame, Elizabeth Freestone’s staging is in service to making the text as lucid as possible. Malfi’s dramatic domestic story is delivered with weighty hammer blows but unafraid to underscore the tonal shifts even taking risks by inserting some apparently humorous staging of her own, which seemed to confuse the audience who were watching during this recording; in one particularly hilarious moment comes during the dark tipping point of the story and is greeted with much nervous laughter. But that just seems to fit a play that itself is striving to innovate beyond the expectations of its time.

The Duchess of Malfi is available on dvd from Stage & Screen.

The Duchess of Malfi (Stage on Screen production from the Greenwich Theatre)



Describing a play as being “ahead of its time” can have wild implications, especially if said theatrical drama was written four hundred years ago. But watching the Greenwich Theatre’s superb production of The Duchess of Malfi, it’s possible to see that John Webster apparently throws out the usual rules of cause and effect and characterisation and as B. Ifor Evans suggests in A Short History of English Drama:
"(it is) as if life itself were governed by chance, not reason, as if human beings acted from passion rather than from consistent conduct governed by consecutive thought."
The result is a radical concoction in which antagonist becomes protagonist and the audience's sympathies shift half way through against our better judgement.

Although Webster begins Malfi with former criminal Bosola's attempt to gain a pardon and show his changed demeanour and he hangs around to offer commentary, from the moment the Duchess enters he places her front and centre and the play becomes a kind of courtly romance, in which Malfi marries her clerk for love rather than money, but as is the way with such concoctions in secret because its against the expressed wishes of her two brothers, a cardinal and a duke who are consumed with spiritual but mostly financial reasons why a second union (any union) should not take place.

When Bosola is inserted into her household to spy on their sister and uncovers the truth the action, though Webster's writing retains a skein of dark humour, turns tragedy as the misguided motivations of the brothers lead Bosola to seek revenge for what they’ve tempted him to do and the person they force him to become in order to carry out their business. Rather like Hitchcock's Psycho, as well experiencing a massive genre shift, the audience finds its allegiance shift in the direction of the man they should find most repellent, but unlike Norman Bates, Webster allows Bosola to ultimately find redemption.

As Bosola, Tim Treloar is commanding. Opening the play as a kind of unreconstructed Gene Hunt figure easily brought into the conspiracy by some easy change, as he shifts from arrogant to avenger, the sweat and tears between seem to become permanently etched on his face. He’s matched by Aislin McGuckin’s attuned aristocratic Malfi whose pre-Raphaelite gait belies a complex soul; rightly, she commands the stage, her maid and various men folk like satellites drifting about her, and it's one of the rare occasions when the loyalty seems deserved rather than conferred because of her position.

But there are few weak performances. As he did with his Mosca in Volpone, Mark Hadfield exquisitely emphasises the duplicitousness of the Cardinal to especially shocking effect when his lover is crossed in a gesture which should be a blessing but becomes the binary opposite. The cold magnetism of Tim Steed’s Ferdinand makes legible why Bosola would throw in his lot even though they’re clearly very wary of one another. Edmund Kinglsey initially seems slightly uncertain in Antonio’s skin but as the character’s masculinity increases so does the strength of his performance to the point that when he discovers his wife’s fate the effect is heartbreaking.

With simple setting and “contemporary” costuming of no fixed time frame, Elizabeth Freestone’s staging is in service to making the text as lucid as possible. Malfi’s dramatic domestic story is delivered with weighty hammer blows but unafraid to underscore the tonal shifts even taking risks by inserting some apparently humorous staging of her own, which seemed to confuse the audience who were watching during this recording; in one particularly hilarious moment comes during the dark tipping point of the story and is greeted with much nervous laughter. But that just seems to fit a play that itself is striving to innovate beyond the expectations of its time.

The Duchess of Malfi is available on dvd from Stage & Screen.