Friday, April 25, 2025
Blog Page 436

The two

Anna Ticehurst
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The two

They trot and wade back from their night, woozy eyes blinking slowly in the dark. This invisible pool that surrounds them is tension, it is magic and for some reason they cannot stop laughing.

They pry the door closed and settle briefly in the warmth. The glowing bedside lamp is their only light. Its embers surround them, licking their skin and feeding their kisses.

They sleep entangled in each other, and it is a beautiful vulnerable mosaic. The rises and falls of breath are long and sweet and low.

Their bodies grow pale and cold in the daylight now, like they have been drained. The mosaic is a stark jumble of limbs and substance.

They part in the crisp with sleep and crusted eyes, heads and bellies dully aching and clothes sticky
And it doesn’t matter now who they are, or were, or will be
It doesn’t matter.

The grey itself

Anna Ticehurst
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The grey itself

I think about it a lot.
Not him, but the event.
Even calling it an ‘event’ makes my body writhe with cringe, makes my teeth feel like they might clatter together and crumble, pooling in my throat.
Picturing him disgusts me and so I would rather not try to do so. It makes me feel dirty in myself, which I know is not fair, but I cannot help how I feel.

Mutuality was not present that night. Eurgh. Calling it ‘that night’ makes it sound worse than it was, like I was raped or murdered. I wasn’t. It is not that simple and often isn’t. But the ‘event’ and ‘that night’ are necessary descriptors, for what else am I meant to call it? Why do I feel guilty adding weight to it through description?

Linguistic details aside, mutuality was not present. It was notably lacking.

I am lying. It was there at the start, at the very start. It was not notably lacking until-
Until the wash phased into grey, never reaching black but certainly grey and definitely not white.

Once it has happened that’s it. It cannot be undone. Confusion clouded my head and hazed my thoughts the following day. I explained the grey to my friends and to my delight they understood exactly what I meant. They could relay back to me my own experience and I did not feel crazy or like I was overreacting.

I do not wholly blame him, but I blame myself. I blame him for not stopping and for the nature of the event but not for the event itself. I blame myself for seducing him in the first place.

It’s funny because it wasn’t a moment that defined anything, myself included.
It was just a moment, clouded with grey but awash with other brighter tones.
But the grey remains, dull and clingy.

And whilst I cannot say exactly what dynamic was at play, I knew I was the weaker one out of us two.

You were old, and I felt like I’d succeeded in seducing you. But that was enough for me.
I didn’t need the rest.
I didn’t ask for the rest, the rest just happened to me.

With a sigh I acknowledge it was ‘just one of those things’.

Control

Anna Ticehurst
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Control

Your fingers chipped unsuccessfully at the nightstand by his bed
You were familiar with its shape

There was something you wanted to say.
You see he is much more perceptive than you think but has no issues with that.
In fact, he rather likes it-
You had not suspected he had noticed.

A thick air of the unsaid seemed to land in your eyes, or maybe it was the August heat causing them to haze, mouth ajar, lips glassy and glossed. It was as if the hinge to your jaw was broken, jammed like a printer out of ink

Your chest expanded and contracted at a steady pace- the control in your voice seemed more of an effort than you tried to let on.

Had this been any other day, he would have brushed off the hair that was hung off your jaw and teased you for not noticing it yourself, but it somehow didn’t quite feel appropriate today.

Your bare feet broke out of the crease in his duvet nestled at the end of the bed, launching a plume of specks into the space between you, and again as they landed back on top.

The paleness of your legs made them vulnerable in the light that shone in from his bedroom window.

The specks soon settled back down onto the linen. He wanted to dust them off so he didn’t have to breath them in. Instead he accepted his fate and returned his attention to you.

You don’t know this, but after you left, he cried.

Decadence, eroticism and indecent beauty: Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain

Megan Stevenson
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Decadence, eroticism and indecent beauty: Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain

Aubrey Beardsley was an intensely talented, risqué artist who stunned his late-Victorian audience. Loved by many for his depiction of the underside of London life, Beardsley was not afraid to draw what went unspoken with unparalleled detail and humour. He died of tuberculosis at just 25, but despite his short career, his work created such a powerful impact that the 1890s became known as the ‘Beardsley Period’.

The Tate Britain’s current exhibition of Beardsley’s work spans his 7-year career with over 200 pieces. It is currently available to explore on the Tate’s website, although it is more of a taster of what the exhibition has to offer than a substitute for a real visit. It left my appetite whetted for a possible visit in the future, in the hopes that the exhibition length will be extended in light of its current closure.

Starting with the ‘Beginnings’ section, the exhibition outlines Beardsley’s meeting with Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones and the encouragement he received from the famed artist. We are also told about Beardsley’s interest in sexual freedom and gender fluidity, themes which recur throughout his career, repeatedly shocking viewers.

As the exhibition progresses, we trace Beardsley’s rise, fall, and rise again, in and out of public favour. The images Beardsley produced are refreshing in their stark black and white lines, which have a simplicity of form that also allows him to create complex compositions; many have hidden features and humorous repeating motifs (the angry foetus being my personal favourite, see Enter Herodias and Incipit Vita Nova). The popularity of his style gave Beardsley the opportunity to illustrate famous works such as Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, and the controversial The Yellow Book, an avant-garde magazine first released in 1894. The association with Wilde, however, would prove to drag Beardsley down following his propulsion skyward. In 1895 when Wilde was prosecuted for “gross indecency”, Beardsley’s close association with the writer in the public’s mind’s eye was near fatal for his career. The exhibition goes on to document Beardsley’s attempt to rise again. The drawings he produces in this time are beautiful, perhaps out of a desire to prove oneself and redeem the fame that seemed lost.

But what is Beardsley most famous for today? Surely it is his eroticism. As I said earlier, this exhibition is clear to highlight his attitudes towards sex and gender for viewers right at the beginning, before Beardsley’s work has even been encountered.

Some of Beardsley’s pieces reference sexuality in subtle ways. Black Coffee, which shows two women sitting beside each other in a café. One woman’s hand reaches under the table towards the lap of her companion, who has brought both of her own hands beneath the table too. The surreptitious sideways glances and the hair pins denoting devil-horns suggest there might be more beneath the surface of this relationship (and beneath the table) than meets the eye.

Other pieces are more explicit. The Impatient Adulterer, for example, shows a man naked from the waist down, holding his penis and peeking between curtains at something we cannot see. A lot of Beardsley’s starkly explicit pieces were not advertised, instead being made available only to a small group of collectors. The “indecency” made the images unpublishable. The Impatient Adulterer did not even make it into Beardsley’s first retrospective show, held at the V&A in 1966. It was deemed too explicit. The world was still not ready for the drawing 70 years after it was created.

Interestingly, this exhibition in 2020 has separated the illustrations deemed most explicit, showcasing them in a separate room. Although on display, their erotic nature makes them distinct from Beardsley’s other works, this perception being emphasised by their physical separation within the exhibition space. Perhaps the world is still not quite ready for Beardsley in all his inky glory.

Percy Jackson and The Failed Adaptation

Abigail Howe
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Percy Jackson and The Failed Adaptation

If you think you received scathing feedback in your tutorials, you should check out Rick Riordan’s emails to Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief’s producers: “the script as a whole is terrible… fans of the books will be angry and disappointed. They will leave the theatre in droves and generate horrible word of mouth.” He’s certainly not the Oracle of Delphi but this prophecy came true. Two films were released, both directed by Chris Columbus (who notably also directed the first two films of the Harry Potter franchise), and both panned by fans. Ten years after the first film’s release, fans were still clamouring for a faithful adaptation. On 14 May, their prayers (and burnt offerings to the gods) were answered.

“Hey Percy Jackson fans, for the past decade you’ve worked hard to champion a faithful on-screen adaption of Percy Jackson’s world,” Riordan said on Twitter. “Some of you have even suggested it would be a great series for Disney+. We couldn’t agree more! We can’t say much more at this stage but we are very excited about the idea of a live-action series of the highest quality, following the storyline of the original ‘Percy Jackson’ five-book series, starting with ‘The Lightning Thief’ in Season 1. Rest assured that Becky and I will be involved in-person in every aspect of the show. There will be much more news in the future, but for now, we have a lot of work to do! Buckle up, demigods. It’s going to be a fantastic, exciting ride!”

It’s a big leap from an author disowning an adaptation, damning the script as “terrible”, writing to schools to ask them not to show the film alongside their studies of the series, to proudly announcing a new adaptation in the works. So, what’s changed?

The gap between film and television adaptations may contribute to this development. The chapters seem episodic, each with their own Freytag’s Pyramid. This bizarre series of mini-plots (including fighting a chimera at the top of the St Louis Arch, meeting Procrustes in a waterbed store and getting bought burgers by the god of war) adds to the humour and personality of the series, as well as highlighting Riordan’s skill at adapting Greek mythology (and later Roman, Egyptian and Norse) to the modern world. For a two hour film, covering all that content is impossible. For one season of television per book, it’s an option. A Series of Unfortunate Events has had a rebirth in this manner – originally a bestselling series of thirteen books, then reduced to a film with three butchered books crammed in and eventually adapted by Netflix into 25 episodes, each running from half an hour to an hour. A similar structure could be employed for Percy Jackson.

Previously, a television series has been a death knoll for adaptations (after Allegiant’s box office failure, the final instalment of The Divergent Series’ adaptation was initially predicted to be a television project – nothing has ever come of it). Now, the rise of streaming services has changed this (especially with Disney+’s budget), international rights and marketing are easier to negotiate than ever. The record-breaking success, strangely enough, of Trolls World Tour (yes, I never thought I’d be writing that either) as a digital release has also set a new precedent for the potential success of streamed media.

Not knowing your target audience is always dangerous for films. The Lightning Thief’s producers aged its characters, made a romance far more explicit and included a sexualised drug-taking sequence. Riordan’s passion (the books were originally written for his dyslexic son) for the project means that he has interacted a lot with fans; in one email, he wrote that “there is nothing radical, fresh or interesting about biyotch, ass, or shit”, attacking the corniness of  dialogue as well as its content. While this may contribute to a ‘better’ adaptation, it’s also helpful for profit – if you already have a fanbase, you need to exploit it for all it’s worth. That typically means sticking to the original arc and characters as much as possible. For The Lightning Thief this means keeping Percy’s age faithful to the books (his age was changed from 9-12 in the original novel to 16 in the finished film). Riordan recognised the strangeness of this change, writing that “the core readership for Percy Jackson is age 9-12…there are roughly a million kids that age, plus their families, who are dying to see this film because they want to see the pictures in their imagination brought to life… you’ve lost those kids as soon as they see the first movie trailer.”

Whether Disney+ will create a faithful (or even just successful) adaptation or another flop has fans nervously waiting – placing trust in their own minor god who has blessed this new journey for Percy Jackson.

Image via Wiki Images

All Greek to Me: Why we can’t get enough of modern takes on ancient literature

Emma Hewlett
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All Greek to Me: Why we can’t get enough of modern takes on ancient literature

Greek and Latin works have inspired literature throughout the ages – authors were, and still are, constantly riffing off one another, with even Virgil, writing his Aeneid during the infancy of the Roman Empire, following in the footsteps of his epic predecessor Homer. In turn, Dante employs Virgil as his own inspiration, and guide through Hell, in the Inferno, and as we move through the centuries we see the classical chain of inspiration continue to this day, with authors such as Madeline Miller, Donna Tartt and Rick Riordan using mythology and classical literature as the Muse to their own writing.

As a classicist, my choice of degree can be entirely traced back to my twelve year old self reading Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series for the first time. The books work as a perfect first dive into mythology, bringing in gods, goddesses, and monsters in a fun and engaging way, while also keeping close to the classical source material. The narrative includes many stories and details which are close to those associated with ancient heroes such as Odysseus, Heracles, and of course Perseus. As I then started to learn about the classical world in school, there were multiple occasions upon which we would learn about a particular hero and his deeds in class, and I would remember that Percy Jackson himself had completed much the same task. Attention to detail, then, is key, and I would even go so far as to say that they would still hold up at degree level. Furthermore, Riordan’s dedication to diversity and representation also shines through as a great virtue of his books – the characters represent a wide range of ethnicities and social backgrounds, specifically in a series based on ancient myth and tradition, a diversity which has often been markedly absent from the classical texts themselves, as well as their scholarly community. 

Traditionally, classics has been seen as a subject reserved for the “pale, male, and stale”, but it seems that this exclusive reputation might have provided motivation for authors to write their own takes on the classical myths and epic, bringing to the forefront those characters who have often been pushed to the side. Inevitably, amongst this number are inevitably a great number of female characters. Their ‘untold story’ is now given the spotlight, as in Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, Emily Hauser’s For The Most Beautiful, and Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad, where the writer gives their reader more insight into the ‘backstory’ of the women who have little or no voice in epic. It is precisely this reclaiming of the female voice through which these authors shine – both Hauser and Barker focus on the Iliadic slave-women, Chryseis and Briseis, who serve the Greek leaders in their camp. Chryseis is the catalyst of much of the conflict of the Iliad, and sparks the famously blazing anger of Achilles, yet she does not speak a single word in the whole epic, functioning merely as an object for trade among men. Hauser, however, gives her voice in describing her plight as King Agamemnon’s slave, showing the brutal reality of female servitude and experience in war, a theme present only on the periphery of the epic poems themselves.

Similarly, Ursula le Guin’s Lavinia centres on the eponymous daughter of King Latinus in the Aeneid, another silent figure whose highest personal prominence in the epic comes from her blushing upon seeing her prospective husband. The women’s stories are finally told in their own voice, a refreshing take in comparison to even the most progressive of Lit. Hum. modules, in which women often only figure as the focus of one tutorial. Atwood’s Penelope is recast from an already shadowy character in the Odyssey. While Homer gives us Penelope’s wily nature and calculating intelligence, Atwood amplifies this, showing us the more cynical side of a woman traditionally seen as the paradigm of the faithful wife (to an incredibly wayward husband). Interestingly, both Atwood and Le Guin give their protagonists a metaliterary awareness of their existence within a narrative, an active decision in framing their narrators as finally speaking their truths. Circe, a bewitching goddess from Odysseus’ travels, also shines in Madeline Miller’s 2018 novel. Once again, we get a backstory which goes further, describing Circe’s past before we come to the more familiar waters of her appearance in the Odyssey, with her expanded story made all the more striking through her liminal identity between the mortal and immortal planes of existence.

Miller’s The Song of Achilles has to take the cake, however, as my favourite novel of them all. A fresh take on the relationship between Achilles and his cousin Patroklos, as told from Patroklos’ perspective, Miller’s prose is stunningly lyrical and flows with the astuteness of Homer himself. I have read The Song of Achilles three times thus far, and the final chapters never fail to make me misty-eyed. 

For me, having read these books enhances the original Greek and Latin texts, as I come across them in my studies – to think that that twelve year old Percy Jackson fan can now read the texts which served as the inspiration for her favourite books in the original Ancient Greek is still mind-blowing to me. I have loved studying the Iliad at university in the original language, and seeing where the authors I have admired for so long got their inspiration from. I must still confess that on occasion the details from these books have gotten confused with text I am supposed to be studying in tutorials, but still these occasional slip-ups only serve to enrich the subject to me, and as a whole these books allow us to see the ancient literature from a crucially alternate perspective. I have certainly been grateful for their introduction to an often traditional and exclusive subject, as they break down ancient barriers and widen horizons for stories which have long gone unspoken, and voices which have long gone unheard.

Unelected, Unrepentant, Untouchable

Shariz Aslam
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Unelected, Unrepentant, Untouchable

Seeing the Daily Mail and The Guardian seemingly in agreement on a political scandal can only be described as a strange phenomenon. Yet this is exactly what Dominic Cummings’ actions – and the government’s response – appear to have achieved.

In case you somehow missed the news around Boris Johnson’s senior adviser and the subsequent fiasco (read: I envy you), the internet is full of detailed accounts. To briefly summarise, stories broke on Friday evening that Cummings had – at the end of March – driven over 250 miles from his home in London to his parents’ property in County Durham. Later that weekend reports arose that on the 12th April, his wife’s birthday, Cummings was spotted at Barnard Castle, some 30 miles from where he was staying.

As the reports came in, I couldn’t help but feel annoyed. Quickly, though, members of Johnson’s cabinet leapt to Twitter to defend the senior adviser’s actions. All echoed Number 10’s comments that Cummings had made the trip out of fear that, should both he and his then-ill wife become incapacitated by COVID-19, there would be no one to care for their child.

Whilst I’m sympathetic to a father wanting to care for his child, this raised more questions than it answered. Was there really no reasonable childcare in London? Why drive across the country when you suspect both you and your wife may have the virus, when government policy was to immediately self-isolate? Crucially, it made me think: did Cummings believe these guidelines didn’t apply to him?

Lockdown has been hard for us all. Missing the communal components of Ramadan, forgoing all the incredibly fun experiences older years said Trinity term had waiting for us, and the subduing of Eid celebrations was all tough. But, for the most part, these sacrifices were relatively easy. They were luxuries that I knew many were missing, ones I’d hopefully go back to experiencing next year.

The hardships that we didn’t expect were the real adversities. The families missing funerals, the patients dying alone in hospital, the fathers who missed births; all these people sacrificed some of the most important moments of their lives for the wider benefit of this country. For all these sacrifices, there is no ‘next year’.

One of my closest friends went through enormous hardship when he lost a parent around the same time Cummings made his trip up north. The one thing I yearned for more than anything was the option to visit him, to be there for support. But I couldn’t, the lockdown made it clear that was off the table. I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it must have been for him or the thousands of families across the country who faced similar circumstances.

What I could imagine, however, is their outrage.

Why did they have to sacrifice so much for these restrictions? Cummings’ hypocrisy, given he helped draft these rules, is not just offensive to the principles and standards we always hope to hold those in power to. In these extraordinary times, this hypocrisy is a middle-finger to the millions of Britons who kept to the regulations, despite moments of hardship, under the notion that ‘we are all in this together’. Yet, it appears, we are not. Behind the smokescreen of unity lies a dichotomy; one set of rules for them, another for us.

In a press conference on Sunday, Cummings gave his answers to many of our questions. Remember the trip where he – on his wife’s birthday – drove 30 miles, wife and child in tow, to a picturesque castle and riverside? He claimed this drive was exclusively to test his eyesight and roadworthiness before driving back to London. I could discuss how this strikes me as questionable at best, but that would miss the bigger picture.

The bigger picture pivots around the global crisis we find ourselves in. Lockdown measures have been difficult to police efficiently, and Britons have been trusted to abide by them. This trust works both ways; there’s a reason why so many cabinet ministers stood before the podium chanting the same mantra of ‘we are all in this together’. Trust in our executive is paramount.

This trust was built, in a ‘rally-round-the-flag’ type fashion, when Boris Johnson delivered clear instruction to all of us in late March. This image of a decisive, steadfast leader was one the PM had been trying to build for years.

Thus, the perception of Cummings’ trip matters, not its legality, and the majority of Britons did not see it as responsible. Musician Tim Burgess tweeted a poll asking if people agreed with Johnson saying that ‘most people would accept and agree’ with Cummings’ actions. The result? 92% ‘No’, with over 360,000 votes cast.

This blow to public perception came as the ‘rally-round-the-flag’ effect had already been fading, as perception of the government’s handling of the crisis waned, and that trust slowly faltered.

By May, the UK was revealed to be the second-worst hit country for COVID-19 deaths, topped only by a nation of five times the population and led by a man who implied his citizens could ingest bleach to kill the virus. Johnson’s new ‘Stay Alert’ slogan had been shunned by the other home nations, leading some to title him as the ‘Prime Minister of England’ and not a supposedly United Kingdom. The PM’s approval ratings were already dwindling before he announced Cummings was to stay.

The net effect of keeping Cummings is a dangerous one. If the British see their government as treating them with contempt, the public will start giving lockdown similar treatment. Stephen Reicher of the government’s advisory group on behavioural science (SPI-B) commented that, by backing Cummings, Johnson had ‘trashed all advice… on how to build trust and secure adherence to’ the lockdown.

It’s not hard to see why the PM is frightened to let go of his senior adviser, even if he should. Dominic Cummings is arguably responsible for paving Boris Johnson’s path to premiership, with 2016’s Vote Leave campaign bringing Johnson back to front-line politics, and his help ever since leaving the PM indebted.

I disagree with Cummings’ actions, but it’s hard to refute the man’s competence. As the same cannot be said for the Cabinet, the Prime Minister is unlikely to let go of him without a fight. Make no mistake, if Johnson wishes to salvage a vestige of trust with the British public then Cummings must go. Yet with Johnson held firmly by the balls, Cummings may well be untouchable.

Review: The Globe’s Macbeth

Tallulah Griffith
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Review: The Globe’s Macbeth

Touted as one of their ‘relaxed performances’, the Globe’s Macbeth seeks to “break down walls to cultural access and empower teenagers to develop their creative curiosity”. At a juncture where many of us are reconsidering the platforms and media employed in theatrical staging, this take on the play contributes to a highly contemporary conversation. We can overstate the democratic potential of the online availability of theatre productions. Yet, combined as this production is with an audio-described version and guides to the performance (also available online), and various provisions for barriers to viewing the performance live, there arise at this moment new avenues for exploration. As we are all confined to our homes, we can perhaps become a little more attuned to the possibilities for widening cultural access.

Though Cressida Brown’s Macbeth is pitched to a younger audience, it remains disturbing viewing for all ages. At the play’s opening, the scene is set with a stack of corpses; as a figure clad in rags mounts the putrefied pile and gnaws at fruit from the wreckage, we are accosted with an uncomfortably humanising depiction of the first weird sister. As a scavenger, who also acquires the “pilot’s thumb” by ravaging his body with her teeth, the supernatural figure is not so removed from the material needs of those in the human realm. In this, she alludes to the cannibalistic predation and gory projects of survival which haunts the scenes to come.

Generally, the production relies on minimal staging – in an effort, perhaps, to encourage younger audiences to engage with the intricate psychological spaces opened up in the dialogue. Visual cues, however, helpfully flag changing allegiances, notably in Scottish and English insignia, posters which name Macbeth a tyrant, and some strategically placed helium balloons. In the first Act, King Duncan holds a party celebrating the military victories of Macbeth and Banquo, for which the set is adorned with balloons which read ‘congrats’; in the disarray of the party’s aftermath, ‘rats’ remains the header emblazoned across the subsequent scene, in which Lady Macbeth impels her husband to murderous action. The ‘rats’ are hidden, after all, in plain sight, prophesied from the outset.

The cast at large appear in various shades of Scottish blue, which on the pregnant Lady Macbeth acquires a particularly Madonna-like quality. Without wishing to labour the pun, this unborn child offers a fruitful addition. The visible bump, protruding through a boiler suit and combined with the lady’s hardy boots signpost corrupted femininity: this is the belly Lady Macbeth cradles as she calls on the fates to “unsex me now” and indeed when she professes the casual indifference with which she would dash out the brains of “the babe that milks me”. There is a measure of artistic license, certainly, but as Act IV reveals that Macbeth is childless, there is some implication of a lost child in Shakespeare’s text which drives much of the abortive action. Equally, of course, this pregnant figure attends to Macbeth’s infantilization at the mercy of his wife.

Famously the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Macbeth is here marginally abridged for a 90-minute performance. The result is pithy, maintaining the key action and driving imagery. There is perhaps one regrettable omission: the porter’s scene. True, the production maintains the comic interlude: the porter stumbles on, casts himself as hell’s gatekeeper, and conjectures on what manner of devil may be knocking. With the inclusion of a more readily intelligible knock-knock joke—coupled with an intertextual reference to Hamlet, at that—the scene remains the sole comedic punctuation of the play. But, in this edit, we also miss the play’s most explicit take on equivocation, a major theme throughout, complementing the witches’ ambiguous apparitions and Macbeth’s uncertain loyalties, not to mention the fact that the drunken porter may know more than he lets on. Oversimplification, however, is no major fault in this production. In all, the Globe’s more accessible Macbeth does justice to its legacy: it is simple, yet effective.

The Globe is actively encouraging donations from its audience, as it has warned it may not survive the financial impact of the global pandemic.

“I don’t want realism, I want magic”: NT Live’s A Streetcar Named Desire

Eve Bennett
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“I don’t want realism, I want magic”: NT Live’s A Streetcar Named Desire

“Don’t you just love these long rainy afternoons […] when an hour isn’t just an hour—but a whole little piece of eternity dropped into your hands—and who knows what to do with it?”

As the nationwide lockdown drags on, this oft-quoted line from A Streetcar Named Desire has taken on a new painful resonance for many of us. If, however, you do find yourself with a long rainy afternoon to spare this week, watching Benedict Andrews’ fantastic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ most famous play will make an hour feel like a minute and a day all at once.

Gillian Anderson gives the performance of her career as the fading Southern Belle Blanche DuBois, who seeks refuge from the collapse of her family estate in the cramped New Orleans apartment of her sister Stella (Vanessa Kirby). In the events that ensue, the conflict between the romantic delusions of America’s moribund Southern past and the unapologetic realism of its burgeoning capitalist culture takes on an all-too-human dimension, as the already fragile Blanche becomes locked in a bitter confrontation with Stella’s no-nonsense, blue-collar husband Stanley Kowalski (Ben Foster).

The four walls of this claustrophobic, sparsely furnished space are completely stripped away in this National Theatre production, set upon a slowly-revolving platform that leaves both audience and cast with nowhere to hide as temperatures rise, pressures build and initial tensions spiral into explosive violence with devastating consequences.

Anderson’s dazzling portrayal of Blanche is worlds away from Vivian Leigh’s. Utterly vulnerable and yet brazenly fierce and sensual, she resists her descent into insanity until the play’s (very) bitter end. The raw humanity and nuanced complexity Anderson brings to the role leaves you vacillating between deep dislike and profound sympathy for the play’s duration.

The mere presence of Foster’s Stanley is suffocating. Rough around the edges and dripping with sex appeal, if his electric chemistry with Kirby isn’t enough to take your breath away, the almost animal brutishness he displays in his numerous violent outbursts most definitely will. He too taps masterfully into his character’s more vulnerable side, unveiling the suppressed insecurity that lies behind the macho posturing and his hell-bent desire to uncover the truth of Blanche’s elusive past.

Kirby slips perfectly into the role of the conflicted Stella, exploring the toxic interplay between sex and abuse that shapes her marriage, whilst Corey Johnson’s Mitch offers us moments of much-needed light relief from the otherwise unrelenting tension. For a play where little actually ‘happens’, the pace is dizzyingly intense. We, like Blanche, feel as though we are on a streetcar hurtling headlong toward disaster.

Alex Baranowski’s chillingly haunting score complements the action beautifully from start to finish. As the lights go down steamy jazz and blues permeate the set, immersing the audience in the sensuous atmosphere of Elysian Fields. As time passes and Blanche’s demons draw ever nearer, the increasingly dissonant sounds of the varsouviana work perfectly to externalise her psychological deterioration. The addition of songs such as Chris Isaac’s Wicked Game and Cat Power’s Troubled Waters are equally well-chosen, serving as fitting emotional punctuation between the play’s eleven lengthy scenes.

These elements come together with powerful force on stage, turning the Young Vic (or in this case your living room) into a pressure cooker of lust, brutality, delusion and desperation. By the time the three-hour production reaches its tragic finale, you are left disorientated, emotionally shattered and mildly motion-sick. When you see it for yourself, you will understand why Anderson found herself “hanging onto reality by a thread” by the end of its run.

This critically-acclaimed adaptation remains the Young Vic’s fastest-selling production for good reason. And, thanks to the National Theatre, the live stream is free for all to view on YouTube until May 28th. In Blanche’s famous final line, she admits she has “always depended on the kindness of strangers”, and we too should be grateful to those at NT Live for providing us with such fantastic theatre in these trying times.

Being True to the Book

Amber Haslam
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Being True to the Book

Adapting books for the stage or screen seems to be completely irresistible. We are compelled to take words on a page and transform them into a visual, tangible form; it is so common that it is an unsaid assumption and expectation that an acclaimed book will be adapted. By watching, we agree to abandon our own imaginations – our private, personal visions of and connections with the book – for a couple of hours, in order to take part in this shared experience of someone else’s. We excitedly accept the invitation, out of curiosity: what will the story be like when the characters are physically there before our eyes? Will it match our vision of it? And, crucially, will anything be different?

These questions were running through my head when I watched the trailer for the TV adaption of Sally Rooney’s Normal People and then waited with eager anticipation for it to appear on BBC iPlayer. I was happy that it had been adapted, that I was being offered more from a book that I loved. But why did I need more? What Sally Rooney wrote is far from unsatisfying, but evidently what we are still left with is a desire to see it taken further and an urge to do so.

Original novels are often adapted to do just this: to further explore their meaning, sometimes to push their apparent boundaries or conclusions. Yet the most common compliment of an adaption is “it’s true to the book”. Candice Carty Williams wrote that the Normal People adaption is “sublime”, that, despite her biggest fears, it did the book justice and did not disappoint because Rooney herself wrote the script. Most people I know feel the same way. The lingering shots and slow pace do capture the intensity of the novel and the sense of Rooney’s intimate, evocative sort of writing.But as I watched the first episode, I couldn’t stop thinking about Rooney’s original writing. About how it creates a particularly intimate relationship between the reader and the characters, and therefore the reader and writer. It has such a strong impact on the reader’s mind and holds a profound, personal place there. So I wondered how this connection could possibly survive when a director, and then actors, and then a screen, were placed in between.

Maintaining this connection is the challenge with taking original writing and reimagining it on stage or screen. All the questions of how to interpret it, what to do with the script, how much freedom to give actors, how faithful to be to the original and how to make it good, can often be resolved by answering one: what will make the audience connect with it? The key to a successful adaption might be this simple. But achieving it isn’t. Different people connect with different stories, and likewise people’s reactions to adaptions vary so wildly – according to connection, as well as taste – that it seems that whichever approach is taken, there will be criticism.

Whilst “it’s true to the book” appears to be the most flattering reaction, often audiences actually seek something new. Innovative or experimental plays, with a “fresh approach”, are often the most highly celebrated. This tends to be the case with texts that have been adapted over and over again, with directors all wanting to have their say in interpretation: the most distinct adaptions are the best. They are often more engaging and enjoyable, tearing away from nostalgic expectations of the original.Though it was actually written for the stage, Hamlet is a perfect example of this. It has obsessed directors and actors and seen countless adaptions, no doubt with plenty more to come. Classics like Jane Eyre, Frankenstein and an endless list of others have been reimagined innumerable times. We keep on doing it and keep on watching them, because it is guaranteed that each one will be different, at least subtly.

Robert Icke is a theatre director known for reworking classics and adapting them to modern times. His production of Hamlet stood out as ‘good’ and ‘successful’ because it took the original and explored its most captivating ideas in a novel way. If he had stuck rigorously to the text it would not have shocked or amazed. And isn’t this how we should feel as an audience?And then there is the question of accessibility. Perhaps the most important of them all. Transferring books to TV, film or theatre means some of the best stories ever written can be told to more people. Literacy levels vary, as do preferences and interests. Not everyone loves books, not everyone loves films. And not everyone – in fact, only a small minority – can afford sky-high theatre prices.

So, adaptions make stories more widely accessible, present and prevalent in our culture. Important, marginalised, intelligent and funny voices, and stories that need to be told and heard, are given a bigger and better platform through adaptions. The question of why we adapt original books and what makes a successful adaption can perhaps be answered by questioning why we write and tell stories: to share, to entertain, to educate, to express and explore the human experience so that others may understand or feel less alone, to give a voice to the voiceless.

We all deserve to enjoy and benefit from these things, in whatever form the story takes, and through a variety of experiences. And we deserve to have the choice, to have an option. Adaptions liberate us and expose us to more. They allow us to be faced with 1,900-page classic novels and have the delightful alternatives of a West End production or a film: I really don’t know of anyone who, given the choice, wouldn’t opt for settling down in front of the screen or stage.

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