King for a Day
May 11, 2012
Well, I did fear the blogs might run dry, but yesterday, a bunch of us from the WCFIT company went to see the understudy run of King John in the Swan. What a joy!
The production itself is somewhat whacky to say the least, and perhaps it was the irreverent nature of the thing that encouraged the company to throw all caution to the winds and just go for it. They were simply wonderful.
I first met Natalie Klamar in the green room at the Clapham rehearsal rooms when she was, with some trepidation, auditioning for the season. She later thanked me for the assurance I had given her. How could she have guessed that she would soon be knocking me flat with a most confident and assured account of one of the key roles of the World Shakespeare Festival? Her Bastard Faulconbridge was a revelation.
Josh Jenkins' King John was thrillingly relaxed. An audience so needs to feel an actor's comfort in the skin of their role.
Mariam Bell, who doesn't actually speak in the normal production, gave us a Constance and a Blanche that were a master class. She had two of the best speeches in the play: Constance grieving for her lost child and Blanche facing a fearful choice of loyalty. We won't get a chance to see the usual cast for some weeks so it was just great to get such a full and confident account of the play. Everybody was wonderful.
Then, after our show that night, I invited our own cast to dinner. Next week, as part of RSC Learning Week, I have offered to do a hands-on demo of the very first recipe I did on This Morning way back in the nineties. It led to repeated appearances as a live guest chef - which I loved. I thought it would be a good idea to check the timings and stuff, so I cooked it up for my chums. It went down well, thank goodness.
I'm reminded of something I ventured on the the Up All Night radio show this week, which I could share with you here.
There was talk of how the teaching of Shakespeare at school puts some people off for life. I suggested that if I wanted to introduce a young person to the wonder (!) of my cooking, they wouldn't find having to read slowly through the recipe very appealing or effective; but if I sat them down at my carefully laid table, put the fragrant dish before them and simply said, 'Taste this!' they might be intrigued to, later, look at the recipe, talk about the method and discuss what, if anything, makes the dish special.
So according to my analogy, don't let kids anywhere near a Shakespeare text until they have tasted a cracking performance, met an actor, and seen backstage how the magic is managed... then they might have an appetite to explore together why and how it works.
The picture today is of Natalie Klamar getting ready. And getting compliments.
by Nick Day
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