PUTTING A SPIN ON IT

Well, old nag, let’s go smash our Shakespeare.

Epigraph to The Fairground Booth by Alexander Blok (taken from Kean by Alexandre Dumas)

To celebrate the beginning of rehearsals for the revival of My Perfect Mind (oddly arranged into two week-long blocks with a month in between to accommodate Paul Hunter’s filming commitments) and to celebrate, too, the surprising fact that this website has been seen so far in 4,042 cities in 121 countries, I felt the need to post a little extra something as a filler before the promised ‘Petherbridge Academy Summer Exhibition’ is quite ready. So here is a bit of footage filmed back in 1989 in the little Civic Theatre, as it was once called, in my hometown of Bradford.

And, of course, our director Kathryn Hunter is currently working in Peter Brook’s latest theatrical offering at the Young Vic, The Valley of Astonishment. I am sure Peter Brook, from the height of his long lifetime achievement, and forty-four years after the circus-inspired magic of ‘Brook’s Dream’, would not take amiss this somewhat tongue-in-cheek tribute to Total Theatre.

‘Summer’
Photo by EP

THE ART OF SERENDIPITY

Art the end result of perception, wisdom, intelligence, discipline, hard work, passion, luck, accident, and coincidence.

Unknown Source 

An improved and slightly expanded version of Postgraduate Postmodern:

Twice during my recent travels round the RA Summer Exhibition, I have met, quite by chance, people who have a link with my painting (on display in the Small Weston Room). On the first occasion, I heard soft Bradford accents in the picture’s vicinity and noticed an elderly lady and what turned out to be her middle-aged son looking intrigued and saying ‘Alhambra’. I introduced myself as the artist and soon discovered that my brother Bill had been a colleague of the lady’s late husband. Her son remembered Bill taking him to a rugby match.

A few days later, on the terrace at the back of Burlington House, I encountered another elderly lady and young man. On that occasion it transpired that the young man had been a boyhood best friend of Bill’s grandson.

There is a further instance of serendipity in the fact that the Summer Exhibition is a nice prelude to the reprise of My Perfect Mind at the Young Vic and that my painting depicts a scene which Paul Hunter fleetingly re-enacts in the show. In anticipation of rehearsals, Paul and I together visited the Summer Exhibition last week, making a little pilgrimage to ‘The Conductor’.

Photo by EP

Coming soon: The PA Summer Exhibition ...

POSTGRADUATE POSTMODERN

One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art. 

Oscar Wilde 

A journey through this year’s RA Schools Show and a sneak preview of the inaugural ‘PA Summer Exhibition’: