Category Archives: The Culture Room

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Harper Lee, the author of the iconic To Kill A Mockingbird, has died at the age of 89. The novel tells the story of the heroic lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends an innocent black man accused of raping a white girl in segregated Alabama. The novel, scandalously, was removed from the GCSE syllabus recently to make room for more ‘English’ literature about drawing rooms and manners. It’s a shame, as generations of students have been given a genuine insight into the legacy of slavery and the pernicious effects of racism and have, I suspect, become better people as a result. Lee, interestingly, grew up in the same small, Southern town as Truman Capote (author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and helped him to research his seminal non-fiction crime novel, In Cold Blood (which we study on the Crime Scene America module).

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Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson in the Oscar winning film of To Kill A Mockingbird (WikiCommons)

Godot at the New Vic

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There are many myths surrounding Samuel Beckett and his work. He is famously reported as telling a reporter that if knew what a play had meant, he would have put it in the play. A theatre critic also described Godot as a play in which nothing happens. Twice. His is an enigmatic presence in 20th century theatre; just google a picture of him and you’ll see what I mean – what a face!

You can see what the critic meant. Vladimir and Estragon are two tramps who meet by a tree for two days running to wait for the mysterious Godot. Each day a message is brought by a boy to say that Godot can’t come today, but he is sure to come tomorrow. A conceited land-owner, Pozzi, and his slave, Lucky (a slave called Lucky?), also cross the stage in each half. Beckett plays with our expectations of time and chronology (everything happens twice, challenging us to examine the notion of causality in narrative development), plot, character, and even what it means to be an audience (there are a number of meta-theatrical moments when the central characters gaze in to the crowd and question who we are – as we question who they are). The play is at once a slapstick exchange between two tramps about sore feet and boots, and an existential meditation on life, death and the possibility of being rescued from the insignificance of life by a greater power.

London Classic Theatre’s production is a fantastic interpretation of a play which has changed the way we think about theatre.

Lost Shelley Poem Found

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A long lost Shelley poem has resurfaced this year, and has now been acquired by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The actress Vanessa Redgrave read  a very moving excerpt from it on R4’sToday progamme, and the librarian was interviewed…
The story is that Shelley got kicked out of Oxford because he published a tract advocating atheism and this poem, called ‘The Existing State of Things’, an anti-war poem. All copies were destroyed, but Shelley managed to keep one which he sent to a relative in Italy, where it remained stashed away ever since.
Below the link:
Check it out. It chimes with the situation as it still is….
Martin J

Norther Broadsides’ The Winter’s Tale

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Staff and students were at the New Vic to see Northern Broadsides interpretation of The Winter’s Tale. It was, as ever, a seductive experience of precision acting and innovative staging. It would be unfair to single out one performance from a faultless cast, but I’m going to anyway. Conrad Nelson as the king, Leontes, was magnificent in his brooding, introspective delusion. I’m sure he’s a lovely guy in real life, but he plays a baddie very well (his Iago, played opposite Lennie Henry’s Othello, was a study in malevolence). The rest of the cast were just magnificent.
Broadsides are well known for mixing drama and music in inventive ways and the turn from tragedy to romance, the ‘problem’ of this problem play, signaled the setting of Shakespeare’s verse to many musical genres, including Bob Dylan, and a folk/hippy design. There can’t been many interpretations of Shakespeare which include Irish dancing, but there should be.
We all departed stage left, pursued by a bear. Next stop Godot!
Broadsides’ trailer for the production can be found here

The new term

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Plans for the new term are coming along nicely. There will be a new module, Writing for Success, for the first years. The planning for the first year trip to Grasmere, the home of the Lakeland poets and Romanticism, is well advanced. In addition, there are plans to see The Winter’s Tale and Waiting for Godot at the New Vic and to take in the exhibition of the works of Lowry and his local counterpart, Arthur Berry, at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.

More news as it’s confirmed.

Postgrad trip to the galleries (and pubs) of Liverpool

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Postgraduate students from Staffordshire University were treated to a day away, to sample the cultural delights and watering holes of Liverpool. It proved to be an ideal opportunity to get everyone together, and the focus of the day was Leonora Carrington’s extraordinary exhibition at the Liverpool Tate (just before the show closed at the end of May). Carrington was an all-out surrealist and magical realist – and a highly accomplished writer of short stories and novels – as well as a stunning visual artist, whose work encompasses paintings large and small, prints, sculpture, tapestries, theatre design and – impossible hats.

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Lear at the New Vic

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Staff and students enjoyed Northern Broadside’s production of King Lear at the New Vic theatre last night. Barry Rutter, the company’s actor-manager and driving creative force, took the title role. The production was directed by Jonathan Miller.

The Guardian gave it 5 stars, which I thought a little generous (http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/mar/08/king-lear-northern-broadsides-review-jonathan-miller). In comparison with the energy and dynamism of other Broadside’s productions, this one felt static; but perhaps this reflected the sense of transition from the old order, by way of tragic hubris, to the new. Rutter brought touching moments to Lear’s downfall, but lacked the authority of a flawed tyrant at the beginning to give the necessary scale to his descent.

The fantastic story, of familial and political loyalty and conflict, carried the production to its famous conclusion (yes, if you don’t know it, you’ll have to read it or see it).

Dracula at the Vic

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Review from 1st Year student, Danny Collard

Theresa Heskins’ production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula was, undoubtedly, one of the more inventive adaptations of this well told tale. Performed at the New Vic Theatre in Stoke ‘in the round’, each audience member left with plenty to discuss on the journey home, regardless of their enjoyment of the show.
The performance stayed remarkably true to the original plot, and it may be said that many of the issues taken (for those that took them) came from its adherence to Stoker’s work, which, especially with age, Continue reading →