Well, old nag, let’s go smash our Shakespeare. Epigraph to The Fairground Booth by Alexander Blok (taken from Kean by Alexandre Dumas) To celebrate the beginning of rehearsals for the revival of My Perfect Mind (oddly arranged into two week-long blocks with a month in between to accommodate Paul Hunter’s filming commitments) and to celebrate, too, …
Art the end result of perception, wisdom, intelligence, discipline, hard work, passion, luck, accident, and coincidence. Unknown Source An improved and slightly expanded version of Postgraduate Postmodern: Twice during my recent travels round the RA Summer Exhibition, I have met, quite by chance, people who have a link with my painting (on display in the …
One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art. Oscar Wilde A journey through this year’s RA Schools Show and a sneak preview of the inaugural ‘PA Summer Exhibition’:
I paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate my ‘careless boyhood’ with all that lies on the banks of the Stour. Those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful – that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before ever I touched …
Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood. Pablo Neruda In celebration of May Day, a short excerpt from Slim Chances:
Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children’s hands, in front-yard plots, – now standing by wall-sides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests; the last …
Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes, Thou, who display’dst a life of common-place, Leaving no intimate word or personal trace Of high design outside the artistry Of thy penned dreams, Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally. Thomas Hardy, ‘To Shakespeare After 300 Years’ What …
In honour of Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, officially celebrated on 23rd April, a new film is imminent. Stay tuned!
Hampstead is the place to ruralise Ritualise, extra-muralise All on …
Hear the voice of the Bard!Who Present, Past, & Future sees … William Blake, Songs of Experience Last week was the first annual, national Shakespeare Week. In celebration, I offer two new sonnets, written as a tribute from an actor to the one whom Ben Jonson called ‘the wonder of our stage’: In progress A new …
I recommend the following films from this extensive list: