NewsBiscuit » Shakespeare

Opera maverick Miller sets West Side Story in Renaissance Italy

Des Custard — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:00:43 +0000

Famed for daring opera productions that relocate historical action to other periods for dramatic effect, Dr. Jonathan Miller has wowed audiences and critics by setting his new production of Leonard Bernstein’s classic, West Side Story, in 14th century Verona.

Dr Miller told a gathering of critics at a preview: ‘I wanted to confound people’s expectations of this Bernstein masterpiece by taking it as far as possible away from its 1950s New York context. And it works! In my earlier productions, I found it easy to give Rigoletto a Mafia-based interpretation or to set The Elixir of Love in America’s diner culture, but I felt I was getting lazy and needed a new challenge.’

Miller explained that in resetting the passion of ‘Romeo and Maria’ in Renaissance Italy, he had found many resonances which brought added frisson to Bernstein’s work. ‘It’s uncanny how well it works in the medieval context, with its setting of squares, high walls and balconies.’

After seeing the preview, Rupert Christiansen writes in today’s Daily Telegraph: ‘Verona at the height of the Renaissance was a vibrant centre of culture and commerce, but the rivalries between noble families and the degree of violence exhibited by the citizens of the city state far surpass the rather tame themes of teenage gang warfare in Bernstein’s original.’

The production features another new departure for Miller, with members of the chorus standing in rows at the back of the stage to avoid detracting from the unfolding story of Romeo and Maria. He explained: ‘You can only do so much with having characters standing around informally, pretending to chat about interesting things, or even dancing for God’s sake, but I wanted to inject a note of realism and have crowds standing around looking bored, like they do in real life.’

Miller said he was particularly pleased with the ending. ‘Instead of just having a street shooting, I’ve given it a really atmospheric setting in a family crypt. There’s this terrific twist where one of them takes a sleeping potion, and then…but I’m not going to spoil it by giving the end away.’

Disappointment for statisticians as monkeys produce Hollyoaks script

Mary Evans — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:00:34 +0000

The long-awaited proof of the theorum surrounding infinity, statistics and unfathomable numbers of simians has underwhelmed the mathematical community as the result of the monkeys’ massed labours was finally revealed to be a mid-week installment of Hollyoaks as opposed to the expected Complete Works of Shakespeare.

But the monkeys are furious at what they regard as an enormous snub of their creative endeavours and are already threatening never to reveal the outcome of Lydia’s Chlamydia test. ‘This is bloody typical of a writer’s lot – you file something way ahead of the deadline and everyone’s still whinging,’ said dominant male, Mr Tickles. ‘If we’d written another Complete Works we’d have been accused of plagiarism.’

Pre-school children ‘woefully ignorant of trigonometry’

games — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:00:46 +0000

Pre-school teachers are in the firing line after research has shown that no less than a quarter of a million children are leaving nursery school each year with a substandard level of education. The report slams pre-school educators, claiming that most four year olds fail to learn the periodic table by heart, whilst many struggle with trigonometry. Poor literacy standards are highlighted by the failure of children to compose Shakespearean sonnets: examples showing untidy prose with muddled tenses and basic spelling mistakes.

A nursery in Milton Keynes is one of many institutions singled out for criticism. ‘Children were asked to read The Iliad,’ the report states, ‘but failed to show even the most basic understanding of Homeric Greek.’ However the report does end on a positive note, pointing out that most European toddlers have an even poorer grasp of English than British pre-schoolers, although the gap narrows in later years.

Roomful of monkeys accused of plagiarism

snoozebiscuit — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:00:19 +0000

A long-anticipated new literary work was slammed as ‘creatively derivative and uninspiring’ by critics this week after publishers released the debut collection from 28 monkeys locked in a room with typewriters. ‘They’ve just copied Shakespeare word for word!’ complained Times critic Justin Keelar, ‘Is it ironic? A statement? I don’t get it’.

A spokeswoman for the monkeys said the complaints from the literary world were a typical attempt by the establishment to undermine new writers, ‘There’s a saying in this business, if you throw enough shit some of it will stick. Something I discovered myself at the monkeys’ launch party last week’.