Wales, Scotland and Ireland – Page 2

Taking Flight Theatre Company; Romeo and Juliet, Monday August 9th, Kidwelly Castle, Wales

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www.takingflighttheatre.co.uk/

For the Americans in the audience at Kidwelly Castle, it was a night of the three things they immediately associate Britain with; a historical building, Shakespeare and rain!

After two hours everyone was soaked, but at least we had coats and umbrellas, the cast did not. Awnings, or even patio umbrellas, might have helped save the players catching pneumonia, or at least in some scenes, but we appreciated how difficult this might have been in a production outstanding for its freedom of movement. The show must go on.

The show! Well-paced and professional, a blend of the familiar lines and a refreshingly light approach, they achieved so much in two hours. It left me feeling determined not to miss the next production. Not every company lives up to such superlatives, but Taking Flight deserves these and more. I shall continue to describe the strengths of this performance before mentioning minor weaknesses, at the risk of sounding, and feeling, churlish.

The major advantage of an outdoor setting has to be the informality, ‘Shakespeare in wellingtons’, and from the beginning you felt part of what was happening, identifying and empathising with the characters and their predicaments. One minor risk at first, is losing the thread of the story between scenes, as we followed the players, and reassemble to watch after costume or setting changes, but you soon adjust to this.

The castle yard setting lent an air of authenticity to the production, I was several times reminded of the replicated Globe theatre at Southwark, the Elizabethan theatre was open to the elements, but with its galleries and awnings, in Shakespeare’s time, itself represented modernity. In provincial settings, the plays must have been performed in similar fashion as tonight at Kidwelly. Would travelling players have made use of a horse-drawn wagon, as alluded to (Act 1, Sn.4) in the play? Quite possibly, and this gives an indication there would be few elaborate props, and these are often unnecessary, as here demonstrated so ably.

‘Romeo and Juliet’, with its well-known tragic theme , is nonetheless associated with Shakespeare’s earlier comedies, and the bawdiness of the earlier acts was well shown, to the point I wondered how the mood was to change upon the brawl and deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt. I need not have worried. The fight scenes were admirably directed (by Michael Aubin), spontaneous and natural, not stilted, including a stylish slow-motion sequence..

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Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Angela’s Ashes A Memoir of a Childhood

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To take up a Pulitzer prize-winning book that has consistently sold in the millions, and appear to take it apart, may seem like an act of iconoclasm. I shall therefore begin by saying that it is one very enjoyable read. Neither did the film version ( Angela’s Ashes [DVD] [2000]) disappoint me, at least, it is one of those rarest of experiences when you sit and watch an adaptation of a book and are forced by the end to acknowledge the makers did a better job than you might have done, despite “two and a half hours of rain”..

The book quote on the back neatly summarises the contents: “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood”.. You can see why this quote was chosen over any other to sell the book, it combines the comfortable certainty of a publisher with another abused child story on the desk, with the skeptical but human reaction, ‘I bet it wasn’t really as bad as all that.. was it?’

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Wildlife of Scotland

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Wildlife of Scotland (1979) Fred Holliday (ed)

In this 1979 198 page book, commissioned by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, eleven writers have presented a comprehensive, yet personal survey of the wildlife inhabiting Scotland’s rich and varied landscape. Man’s influence upon the land and the animals, past and present, has been given special attention, and inevitably sounds a warning for the future.

People are not now so directly dependent upon the land, communications are vastly improved, wildlife is increasingly accepted as a source of pleasure and deserving of protection, and hence there is reason for optimism. However, it is certainly reasonable in return to collectively and individually conserve the habitats of native wildlife, to minimise or eliminate the loss of plant and animal species regardless of how aesthetically pleasing or useful on a practical level..

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Wild Wales (1862) by George Borrow

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Wild Wales (1862) by George Borrow, The people, language and scenery, Chapter XCIX (99)

It has been said you will likely learn more about George Borrow than about Wales when reading this book. It is well worth reading, but the sub-title is very misleading! Borrow was a

Norfolk man, with a passion for all things Welsh, and proud of the knowledge of Welsh he acquired from books. One of his many eccentricities was a habit of correcting the Welsh of his tolerant listeners! I hope by quoting the following encounter at an inn at ‘Gutter Vawr’ (Goitre Fawr), a sense of his enthusiastic style and attitude may be discerned. This was after all, the era of Stanley and Livingstone ( “Dr Livingstone, I presume?“), and before the English went forth empire building, they practiced nearer home. Borrow was never slow to air an opinion, or hide a well-honed prejudice, such that it is worth remembering that those readers familiar with his writings, discern a generosity of spirit at variance with a casual encounter. We should of course not forget the attitude of his contemporaries, when most men of his standing would consider it beneath their dignity to even acknowledge the presence of the people Borrow happily converses with. What a contrast to today’s hectic pace, was Borrows’ casual scheme to leisurely walk the length of Wales!

THE old woman who confronted me in the passage of the inn turned out to be the landlady. On learning that I intended to pass the night at her house, she conducted me into a small room on the right-hand side of the passage, which proved to be the parlour. It was cold and comfortless, for there was no fire in the grate. She told me, however, that one should be lighted, and going out, presently returned with a couple of buxom wenches, who I soon found were her daughters. The good lady had little or no English; the girls, however, had plenty, and of a good kind too. They soon lighted a fire, and then the mother inquired if I wished for any supper.

“Certainly,” said I, “for I have not eaten anything since I left Llandovery. What can I have?”

“We have veal and bacon,” said she.

“That will do,” said I; “fry me some veal and bacon, and I shan’t complain. But pray tell what prodigious noise is that which I hear on the other side of the passage?”

“It is only the miners and the carters in the kitchen making merry,” said one of the girls.

“Is there a good fire there?” said I.

“Oh yes,” said the girl, “we have always a good fire in the kitchen….”

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And They Blessed Rebecca, by Pat Molloy

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And They Blessed Rebecca: An Account of the Welsh Toll Gate Riots, 1839-1844 (1983) by Pat Molloy

Sometimes with popular heroes, historical or recent, the Robin Hoods or the Che’ Guevaras, hard facts can detract from the legend. An in-depth look at the popular uprisings in Wales a century and a half ago, known as the Rebecca Riots, does not detract from the excitement and genuine feelings of a people who took hope from expressing their disgust at extortion and injustice.
The Rebecca Riots have become a powerful and emotive part of Welsh folklore, conveying through the years the spirit of a long and continuing resistance to English domination and exploitation, for attacks on the toll gates in the dead of night, by men with blackened faces, and disguised as women, were only part of the story. Discontentment in rural Wales ran far deeper than mere annoyance with having to pay the excessive and arbitrary road tolls at legal, and worse, illegally erected gates, and that discontent took many forms.

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William Morgan and the Welsh Bible

William Morgan was born in 1545 at Ty Mawr Wybrnant, in the parish of Penmachno, near Betws-y-Coed, North Wales. He attended St John’s College, Cambridge where he studied a range of subjects including Philosophy, Mathematics and Greek.

The Welsh translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was completed by 1567. It was basically the work of two scholars, William Salesbury and Richard Davies, with Thomas Huet’s translation of the book of Revelation. William Morgan, a Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scholar, later revised their translations, adding his rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures. The complete Bible was finally printed in 1588, and by means of it, the goal ‘that every Welshman could draw the truth of the Scriptures from the fountain-head in his own language’ was realized ( Wales: A History, by Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, p.155). Why was royal consent given? For the political expediency of religious uniformity and discouraging Catholicism. The fledgling Anglican Church was committed to national sovereignty over England and Wales, and the disappearance of medieval Catholicism, meant replacing the Mass with scriptural exposition. The Act of 1563 actually stated: ‘that the Welsh people might better learn to love and fear God, to serve and obey their Prince (meaning, Elizabeth I), and to know their duties toward their neighbours’..

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Hugh Miller, The Cromarty Stonemason 1802- 1856

Hugh Miller: Stonemason, Geologist, Writer

Cromarty today is a quiet little town on the Black Isle, North-east Scotland. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, however, it was an important fishing centre, and an important trade supplying the needs of visiting shipping sheltering in the firth nearby, brought relative prosperity.

Born on 10 October 1802, as a boy, Hugh loved the rocky shores and wooded hills of the Black Isle, which he explored, sometimes alone or with friends, sometimes with his uncles, who taught him to appreciate the teeming wildlife of sea, shore and countryside. At nightfall, by the glow of a cottage fire, he was entranced by the tales the old folk could tell, as they passed the long winter evenings.

His father having died at sea when he was five, he developed a certain self-reliance, and so, despite his uncle’s offer to fund a college place, at seventeen he decided to become a stonemason. He knew the trade was hard, but also that the slack winter months would allow him to study natural history and literature, his true vocation. For the next fifteen years, he travelled all over the north of Scotland, quarrying, stone-cutting and building. During this time, as he laboured, he made many of the geological observations familiar in his writings. The Old Red Sandstone, until then little known to fossil collectors or geologists, became his particular interest. Continue reading Hugh Miller, The Cromarty Stonemason 1802- 1856

The Cone Gatherers: A Haunting Story of Violence and Love

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The Cone Gatherers: A Haunting Story of Violence and Love (Canongate Classics)

This short novel must rightly be regarded as a modern classic. It has been compared to ‘Of mice and men’, but the focus is not just on the cone gatherers, but also the complex figure of Duror, the gamekeeper. The challenge put by Robin Jenkins, I believe, is the dichotomy, or division between good and evil, and the different feelings about imperfection, as expressed by the characters..

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Sunset Song

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Sunset Song

‘Sunset song’ is a hauntingly beautiful tale. I came to it whilst living in North-east Scotland. Sunset song, and the companion novels making up ‘A Scots Quair’, are written in a blend of English and Scots words that only at first seem strange or daunting, you soon find that Grassic Gibbon evokes a lost age in a unique and very effective manner, using very little dialogue (in italics), but talking to the reader all the while..

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The Highland Clearances

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The Highland Clearances

Anyone visiting northern Scotland today often begins by admiring the unspoilt wilderness,but soon notices the stone walls of former houses scattered on the landscape. Caithness was not as badly affected as Sutherland, but the population is still one third of the figure 100 years ago. It may be easy to think that the drift away from rural isolation to the cities, and emigration, was by choice, or economic necessity, but this is simplistic..

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