Other key points at issue were the Fool s prophecy speech, the occasional doubling of the Fool and C

The Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon hosted a King Lear in Performance conference on Friday and I was invited to take part on the grounds that I ve reviewed best travel guide greece the play once or twice and might have something best travel guide greece to contribute.
Who does? Scofield, John Wood, Michael Gambon, Robert Stephens, Ian Holm, Eric Porter and Warren Mitchell, with special mentions for David Warner, Kathryn Hunter, Alan Howard, Pete Postlethwaite, David Calder and Laurence Olivier on televison.
Funnily enough, Hicks and McKellen were both outstanding, and somewhat similar, Edgars in their time, just as Ian Holm and Kathryn Hunter have been fine Fools (Hunter this season) and Calder a notable Kent (to Stephens).
Other key points at issue were the Fool s prophecy speech, the occasional doubling of the Fool and Cordelia, the political narrative, so often muddied in the inevitable cuts, and the blinding of Gloucester.
The best blinding I never saw was in the Jonathan Miller Old Vic production (with Eric Porter) when Frances de la Tour as Regan took an obscenely keen interest in the mutilation which happened offstage, in the wings.
This was the now defunct best travel guide greece Welsh Drama Company best travel guide greece s production in 1977 in which the costumes were made of curtain material, the beards fell off at regular intervals and one of Gloucester s gouged eyes skidded across the stage like a frozen shrimp.
Joseph O Conor was a solid Lear, though, and Anthony O Donnell a chirpy Fool (quite what he was being chirpy about, God only knows). There was a lot of bowing and scraping, and Seckerson, alas, had the wobbly head and superfluous gestures of a young curate.
I think I even had a particular young curate in mind at the time, but I don t think of Edward in ecclesiastical best travel guide greece terms at all these days, although he comes over a bit too gushingly pious when talking about Barbara Cook.
His was the opposite of an award-winning performance. Cheers were raised last night, though, for Jeremy James-Taylor, founding artistic director of the National Youth Music Theatre, who collected his OBE last week from the Queen.
He shared his day at the Palace with Patrick Stewart, collecting his knighthood, and Jenson Button, the Formula One world champion, collecting his MBE (Button was late: Trouble with the car, again, Jens? )
Last night, friends and colleagues at the NYMT toasted Jeremy in the sixth floor roof garden of the Trafalgar Hotel, an amazing party location with sensational views over Trafalgar Square and away to the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament. It was a perfect summer best travel guide greece evening.
The guests included Tiffany Graves, who censured me for reviewing her bottom in Sweet Charity, and Dominic Tighe, who said I was welcome to review his when he opens in Aspects of Love at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
best travel guide greece The whole do had been organised best travel guide greece by director Russell Labey, who fell in with the NYMT while working as a television news broadcaster on Jersey when the fledgling company visited, and became one of Jeremy s key associates.
When Russell worked as a popular staff director on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium with equally popular company manager Nick Bromley, the two of them were known as what a surprise .Russell and Bromley. And not just because whenever one of them opened his mouth the other one put his foot in it.
I had to leave before Matt Lucas and Sheridan Smith turned best travel guide greece up, but the place was already heaving with alumni and guests such as producers Stuart Piper and Edward Snape, Ambassador Theatre Group casting supremo Neil Rutherford, the current NYMT chief Dominic Francis, playwright Terence best travel guide greece Frisby, and a strange young blond punk with orange body make-up.
One of my favourite NYMT shows lately was The Kissing Dance with a score by Howard Goodall. Russell had seen a preview of Goodall s latest, Love Story at the Minerva, Chichester, and implied that my trip to the south coast this afternoon might not be completely in vain. Can t wait.