A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or
. . . An Early May Evening’s Entertainment.
. . . Okay, wait. Interpolation. I’m about to hare off in my standard self-absorbed way about everything but the performance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/radio/2009/wk19/7day.shtml
If you scroll down nearly halfway through this extraordinarily long page* you will see a clip on what I’ve just come away from: a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: text by Shakespeare, music by Mendelssohn.
http://www.templemusic.org/events
Here it is again, on the venue’s website, but on the opening screen. (Or it’s the opening screen as I type this.) It’s also sold out. But Radio Three is going to be running it on Sunday, and then it’ll be available on the Radio Three website, to watch as well as listen to. If someone were recommending it to me I’d say yeah, yeah, and turn another page in the book I was reading. But anyone who can bring themselves to consider watching a performance of play and music on their computer–I recommend it. It’s funny and sharp and extremely clever, and I’ll probably get around to telling you about the actual performance tomorrow. Meanwhile. . . .
I’m starving and I don’t dare eat anything because my hands are covered in a Scary Alien Fluid and it’s bad enough it’s on my hands I don’t want it as salad dressing, and I’m sure it’s working on me and I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning two inches tall, with frilly transparent wings, and my name will be Cucumber or Fishbreath or something else wee and winsome. And hurtling hellhounds is going to be really challenging. Right at the moment, chiefly I’m hungry.
I ought to be able to do something clever with Puck’s potion** and Scary Alien Fluids, but I come all over superstitious about weird things sometimes and I don’t want to be an ass or a wife enchanted by a ticked-off husband to fall in love with an ass,*** or poor Hermia or Helena†, so I think I’ll just sit here with weird icky stuff on my hands till I can get home and take a few layers of skin off with some nice unmagical steel wool. Furthermore at home I can have hot food.
Something like the middle of last week I received an email from some extremely inventive not to say loopy outreach publicity person at Radio Three, asking if I’d like to get involved in their Mendelssohn Week–apparently because I’m a well known expert on fairy tales††. The original invitation was–and presumably still is–to come up to London (again) and sit in on the live recording of ‘Words and Music’ which happens late every Sunday night and is what you’d guess: a programme of reading-aloud snippets and complementary bits of music. There’s a different theme every week: next Sunday it’s fairies.††† After I stopped laughing–because I’ve told you already, I think, that I did a brief gig for Radio Three something like a decade ago and have never heard from them again‡–I wrote back and said sure, sounds amusing, tell me more.
I should say that exactly what they’re getting out of any of this remains a trifle obscure to me. They did ask if I would feel like blogging about my Radio Three fairy experiences and I laughed some more and said ‘try and stop me’. There’s this constant background mutter to my life these days: CanIblogaboutit?CanIblogaboutit? This–whatever it is–would be far too good an opportunity to miss. And according to the nice young man who was my Radio Three contact tonight, Radio Three wants to become a presence in the blogosphere. It does? Good heavens. Does that mean we’re developing credibility? Is this a good thing?
Ms Inventive wrote again and said there was still a place available Monday night for the dress rehearsal of a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream–that rather irritating bloke Shakespeare’s play, with Mendelssohn’s incidental music plaited into it, and might I be interested in that too? I would. ‡‡
And the play was delicious. I’m hard graft for Shakespeareans: I don’t like the man, and while I make an exception for Midsummer Night, I am one of the lucky ones who saw Robert Brustein’s then-brand-new American Repertory Theatre’s famous production back in the ’80s, and it just doesn’t get any better. Peter and I also saw a brilliant one at Stratford a while ago. This lot tonight had a very hard act to follow, but they managed.
Ah . . . here’s my station. See you in a minute, with clean hands.
. . . The problem with food, when you’re this tired, is that it puts you to sleep. And this entry is already long enough, even if coherence is a little lacking. Here’s what happened to my hands: I was sitting in the front row, and this is a very interactive production. When the actors came on for their last bow, they passed out a lot of little plastic wands. I got one. I would swear that the fellow who gave it to me said ‘Break it up.’ Manifestly he didn’t, but that’s what I thought he said.‡‡‡ So I set about trying to break it up. I could see it had a shiny coloured fluid in it, and I assumed it was going to emerge as bubbles, or otherwise amusingly interact with raw air . . . as soon as I got it broken up. What I got instead was a handful of smelly disgusting aqueous substance. Ewwwww. I raced to the ladies’ . . . but then I just smelled of heavily perfumed soap as well as a mad alchemist’s latest trial catalyst.
And it’s now nearly 2 in the morning and I’m still eating supper.§ I’m also losing literacy fast. Good night/morning. I’ll give you the rest of the highlights . . . uh, later.
Oh yes, and after a slightly dubious start–whilst I cried aloud and rent my clothing–hellhound digestion has been normal all day.§§
* * *
* Bad design, Radio Three: you ought to be able to go directly to the programme/performance you’re looking for, or at very least only have to scroll through Three’s schedule, instead of One, Two, Four, Five, and Eleventy-seven’s too.
** And I’m longing to make a joke about Fairy Liquid, http://www.uk.pg.com/products/products/fairyLiquid.html ^ which over here means ‘washing up soap’ like ‘kleenex’ means tissue or ‘xerox’ means photocopy, but I can’t quite work it out.
^ I especially like the idea that a plastic washing-up soap bottle provides glamour.
*** Although neither of them is a wonderful human being–er, fairy–and they pretty much deserve each other
† The boys can take care of themselves
†† Cough cough cough cough cough. Although you could be forgiven for assuming that I’m at least a little preoccupied with fairy tales having written four novels^ based on ‘em, including using the same one twice. . . . And twice still not being enough for me, I managed to drag it into yet a third novel . . . about vampires. No, it’s true, I have no shame.
^ And the odd novella
††† No, unfortunately they did not ask me to make suggestions for the playlist.
‡ This is slightly unfair. They contacted me twice more. Both times we were in Australia. Peter’s younger son and his family lived there for a few years and we went out there twice, once in the autumn, once a year and a half later in the spring; both times we were gone a fortnight.
Both times I received an email from Radio Three asking if I’d like to come talk about fairies again next week. Both times I wrote back and said . . . er . . . I’m in Australia. After I used this excuse the second time they said to themselves, why couldn’t she just tell us she’s not interested?, and drew a black line through my name.
‡‡ She also offered me a ticket to a concert in Birmingham–’travel and accommodation could be arranged’–where Thomas Trotter would be playing Mendelssohn for organ, and I would love to go, but I feel that’s a blog opportunity too far for someone whose ME has big teeth, not to mention my little problem about hellhound custody.
‡‡‡ Extra points, class, for anyone who can come up with a phrase he might have said that sounds like ‘Break it up.’
§ With slightly reddened hands. Now I smell like alien fluid, over-perfumed soap, and industrial-strength floor cleaner.
§§ They also haven’t been out now in eleven hours and they’re still fast asleep and utterly relaxed. I’m impressed.
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