"Truly Heart-stirring Relic"

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, begun in 1847, looks after key properties and materials today

September 1847
September always feels like a time of renewal – throughout my school years and my career as a teacher it always signalled the start of the new term, new books, new pens, turning over a new leaf. It signals the month when Autumn begins and the Summer fades fast. April, wrote T S Eliot in The Wasteland, “is the cruellest month” but for me April means my Mum’s and Sister’s birthdays and (not-so-secretly for those who know me) Shakespeare’s birthday on the 23rd April (which was also his death day and has been designated the feast of St George…) We often make unremarkable dates significant by remembering personal events – the first time or the last time we did something…. September also contains a historical twanging thrill for me, a secret celebration, I know, for many Shakespeare fanatics…. In 1847 an auction took place in London advertising the sale of “The Truly Heart-stirring Relic of a Most Glorious Period, and of England’s Immortal Bard.” What we now know as Shakespeare’s Birthplace was up for public sale and celebrities as grand as Prince Albert and Charles Dickens were promoters of “saving the house for the nation.” Stratford-upon-Avon has never looked back, though it was an uphill struggle to keep the project on track and every year sees challenges to the promotion of Shakespeare’s genius. One of my favourite blogs (The Shakespeare Blog by Sylvia Morris) details the struggle and the commemoration of the auction in 2017.

Shakespeare flirting with both Comedy and Tragedy in a Richard Westall painting at the Birthplace Trust and London scenes from recent visits to The Globe on the South Bank in London.

Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and You

Private audience with a theatrical knight

Legendary icon
It was hard to stop smiling in astonishment and wonder at the sight and sound of an almost-octogenarian’s tour de force one-man-show at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry tonight. I attended with my long-time Shakespeare buddy, Michael Thompson, who’d badgered the box office for returns and who’d not only got the triumphant call – “yes, we have two seats for you” – but, it turns out in a miraculous alignment of the stars, that one of the seats was sponsored by Sir Ian McKellen so we were invited backstage afterwards to hear the legendary knight throw out some extra choice anecdotes and bestow his iconic glory in a private audience. I’d seen him in a backstage environment before with a group of students during the second run of Waiting for Godot in London (see picture below.) I saw him in that play with two casts, playing opposite both Yorkshireman, Patrick Stewart and the late, great, Roger Rees, as well as superb supporting actors – as witnessed below with Ronald Pickup and Matthew Kelly.

Saw this production twice with two casts but one McKellen....

Over 80 venues across GB
Sir Ian McKellen’s stamina, memory, bravura acting techniques and vocal command are, live in the theatre, marvellous to behold. This particular show started as a one-off review and then expanded into an 80th birthday celebration of a tour of upwards of 80 venues across Great Britain. The profits from each performance are donated to local charities that are either drama or education or community based. The audience become the second character as he drags people onstage, invites shout-outs of answers and the names of Shakespeare plays. But more importantly he controls the audience mood as adeptly as any mind-altering wizard. The gossipy anecdotes are hilarious, the moving tales of his childhood and political activism draw us into a circle of quiet intimacy and his geographical range of acting experiences take us around the globe from Bolton to Yorkshire to the North-East to Nottingham to London to Stratford-upon-Avon, up mountains in New Zealand and to the throne room of Buckingham Palace. Wondrous!

Explanation for this pic in paragraph below...

Tolkien, Shakespeare, T S Eliot, G M Hopkins and more
At the flick of an eyebrow he moved from a doddering, ancient Agatha Christie character to a gauche and youthful Romeo. He mugged mercilessly in pantomime mode as Widow Twankey and recalled the ignition of his passion for live acting when seeing a performance of Peter Pan. He gave us a preview of his forthcoming film performance as Gus, the Theatre Cat in T S Eliot’s and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats (directed by Tom Hooper and adapted by Lee Hall) and dextrously delivered Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry in the finale to the first half. Just when it seemed impossible to admire him more, out poured forth from the depth of his soul one of his party pieces, the famous speech from Sir Thomas More (probably the only example of Shakespeare’s own handwriting which I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog – click here) – the speech which appeals to our shared humanity in how we should treat refugees. A memorable moment at each performance was his reading from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and the invitation onto stage of an audience member to wield Gandalf’s mighty sword, Glamdring. Above you can see my dear friend, Amy Lancelot (Creative Education Manager at Leeds Playhouse), receiving the polaroid outcome of just such an encounter at a later performance.

Some of Sir Ian McKellen's Film and TV roles

McKellen TV and Film performances that made an impact on me over the years
1970: Edward II in Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
1976: Macbeth in Macbeth by William Shakespeare
1981: DH Lawrence in Priest of Love by Harry T Moore adapted by Alan Plater
1982: Walter in Channel 4’s Walter by David Cook
1985: Sir Andrew Charleson in Plenty by David Hare
1989: John Profumo in Scandal by Michael Thomas
1995: Amos Starkadder in Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons adapted by     Malcolm Bradbury
1995: Richard III in Richard III by William Shakespeare
1998: James Whale in Gods and Monsters by Christopher Bram adapted by Bill   Condon
1998: Kurt Dussander in Apt Pupil by Stephen King adapted by Brandon Boyce
2000: Magneto (Eric Lensherr) in X-Men by Tom DeSanto & Bryan Singer (a role he   went on to play in X-Men 2, The Last Stand and Days of Future Past)
2001: Gandalf in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (a role he went on to   play in a further five films and numerous audio projects)
2006 “Sir Ian McKellen” in Extras, created by Ricky Gervais
2015: Sherlock Holmes in Mr Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, book by Mitch Cullin   adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher
2015: Norman in The Dresser (with Anthony Hopkins)

A fraction of Sir Ian McKellen's stage appearances

McKellen Stage performances I have seen
1979: Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night and Andrei in Chekhov’s Three Sisters on   tour at Dewsbury Town Hall (September)
1988: Acting Shakespeare at Wakefield Theatre Royal (22nd May)
1989: Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon
1997: Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the National Theatre in London
1998: Dr Dorn in Chekhov’s The Seagull at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
1998: Garry Essendine in Coward’s Present Laughter at West Yorkshire Playhouse,   Leeds
1998: Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
2007: King Lear in Trevor Nunn’s production of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Sorin   in Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon
2009: Estragon in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at Theatre Royal, Haymarket in   London
2017: King Lear in Jonathan Munby’s production of Shakespeare’s King Lear (in a   CinemaLive broadcast)

Easter 2019: the Ian McKellen bonus....

Dove descending breaks the air

Mompesson House, a National Trust property in Salisbury's Cathedral Close

Mompesson House
In Salisbury’s Cathedral Close, a National Trust Queen Anne townhouse is accessible and imaginatively presented. The plasterwork inside Mompesson House is exquisite and I became obsessed with a set of Mezzotints by Thomas Frye – the faces seemed to be real people with real lives and real things to say about Eighteenth Century living. The house has been inhabited since 1701 (until 1975) and the walled garden is tranquil and welcoming.

Into the medieval period
It took nearly 38 years to build, it has the tallest spire in Britain, Constable’s famous painting of it is worth millions and we went there. Salisbury Cathedral, begun in 1220, five years after the sealing of the Magna Carta, and rising from a grassy estate in the town of Salisbury. It’s currently home to a soaring installation by artist Michael Pendry; this depicts a flight of doves (Les Colombes) made from individually folded doves, the majority by local community groups. As a symbol of peace, hope and new beginnings it was truly breathtaking.

Interior Salisbury Cathedral - spot the flight of doves.... Michael Pendry's Les Colombes

Highlights
The extraordinary internal walls, the bowed columns, the decorated ceilings, the infinity font, the lovely cloisters, the weird medieval clock, the Prisoners of Conscience window, the intricate quire stalls, the tiny sculptures of Vices and Virtues, the medieval friezes in the Chapter House, the Magna Carta exhibition (yes, one of the surviving copies is there), the model with masons, blacksmiths and artisans at work building the cathedral (with nary a harness or hard hat in sight!) Proper Ken Follett Pillars of the Earth stuff (and, yes, Kingsbridge in the novels was inspired by Salisbury.)

Little Gidding panels, the infinity font and Les Colombes

Little Gidding
The title of this post comes from Little Gidding, T S Eliot’s final poem in The Four Quartets, a masterpiece of yearning. In my (tentative) reading the poem speaks of love; pilgrimage and travelling, real and metaphorical; escaping earth-bound concerns for a better self; confronting regrets, fears and doubt and striving for hope, renewal and authenticity. Only Connect. We need to reflect on who we were, examine who we are and believe who we can be. Somehow the glass panels in Salisbury Cathedral and the soaring doves of Michael Pendry (and the ridiculous optimism of the Magna Carta – what it was, what it is and what it may yet be – somehow synthesised for me on our visit.
We die with the dying: 
See, they depart, and we go with them. 
We are born with the dead: 
See, they return, and bring us with them. 
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration…..
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.