VandAlism

Last Friday I was saved from a fate worse than death (boredom) by an event in which the Directrix, a recurring figure in these pages, was participating. And so it was that I, together with a chum we shall refer to as “the Easterner” found ourselves en route to South Kensington. The Directrix’ event was taking place at no less a venue than the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Victoria and Albert (or “V&A,” as it’s known to friends) is, I have to admit, not my favourite museum by a long shot. I don’t know why, it focuses on art and design, and I’m quite interested in design as a subject. I think the problem is that it covers so very much – from the Classical period to the modern day, and with exhibits from all over the world – that you have to be really into design to take the whole thing in. Compounding this is the fact that it’s quite an old-fashioned museum in terms of the way its exhibits are laid out. There doesn’t seem to be any attempt made to really “wow” the casual visitor in the way that other museums in London do. The whole thing feels like a place you ought to visit rather than a place you visit because you really want to. You know, you go there with your grandma who’s down from Yorkshire for the first time in twenty years or something.

The Great Exhibition

The museum was opened in its current location in 1857, and like its friends the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, was funded by the proceeds of the Great Exhibition of 1851, seen on the right. The Exhibition was Prince Albert’s idea to showcase all of the greatest innovations of the day under a single roof. The venue was Hyde Park, in a massive building known as the Crystal Palace – an edifice made all the more spectacular by the fact that its designer, Joseph Paxton, had no formal training in architecture. The exhibition made a profit of over £180,000, which in modern money is lots, and Albert oversaw the purchase of land in then-largely-undeveloped South Kensington to establish an area of culture and education. This area became known to the satirists of the day as “Albertopolis.” Albert’s progressive aspirations for the British public were not universally acclaimed, perhaps not least because the German Prince Consort was not felt to be “one of us.” It’s like, what does a guy got to do to get some respect around here?

Prince Albert. His facial hair may also have worked against him.

Anyway, the other permanent legacy of the Great Exhibition was that many of the items therein formed the nucleus of the V&A. Lest you think the Royals were incredible egotists, the institution was known at its opening as the South Kensington Museum. However, you’ll notice that like the later title, “the South Kensington Museum” gives no clue whatsoever as to what the museum is actually about.

Anyway. The Directrix’ show was an experimental-type theatre piece as part of one of the events known as “V&A Lates.” These are, as the name suggests, late night openings. In this case, the theme was theatre, and the Directrix’ show was one of a number there. The Easterner and I spent the evening in fear of being audience-participated-with. Much as I enjoy theatre, I have a pathological hatred of audience participation. Actually, I don’t think anyone apart from the actors themselves actually enjoys it.

There were a number of events of great interest there – the one that really stuck for us was a reading from Shakespeare’s First Folio by father-and-son acting duo Timothy and Samuel West. The First Folio is the first halfway-decent edition of Shakespeare’s plays ever published, only omitting the lost texts Cardenio and Love’s Labours Won and the existing plays you’ve never read The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The readings were unpolished and not particularly rehearsed, but even so it was superb to see two highly acclaimed actors showing their stuff. It’s unusual to see Shakespeare’s comic scenes played in a manner that’s actually funny – most actors attempting them tend to go at them as if attempting to bludgeon the jokes to death. The Easterner at one point commented on West Sr, “Why doesn’ t that guy have a knighthood?” I concur.

Sadly, though, we ended up missing the Directrix’ show as a consequence of the labyrinthine layout of the museum and the limited timeframe. We were somewhat berated for this, and were informed that our punishment was that we’d missed out on the chance to meet Dame Judi Dench, who had been there to see it. Other Tom demanded to know why the Directrix had not attempted to capture Dame Judi – I forget what the answer was.

Then we went to the pub, where one guy was so drunk he pissed on the stairs. A good night, all in all.

And if you liked this…
… why not come and see the play I’m in? No audience participation, I promise.

Coming Attractions

What are your plans for this April? I know there’s Mother’s Day and Easter and I believe that Royal Wedding business is happening then, but what about the period from the 13th-16th inclusive?

I know! Why don’t you go to the theatre?

I can understand some of your objections – it’s expensive, it’s hard to get tickets for the big shows, Andrew Lloyd-Webber is pretty rich already, and so on, and so forth. So why not go a bit further out, to Hampton Hill in West London? At the Hampton Hill Playhouse, I hear there’s a superb production of Arthur Miller’s classic play The Crucible coming up. And what’s even better is that I’m in it. I’m playing Danforth, the dude presiding over the mess, no less. So don’t worry, it’s not like one of those shows you go to because someone you know is in it, and then it turns out they’re only in like one scene at the end or something.

The Crucible is one of the all-time greats of American drama, a dramatisation of the Salem witch trials originally published as a protest against McCarthyism, so much so that Miller (shown left) was himself investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee over it. Though McCarthyism is but an embarrassing memory, the play still retains its relevance – wherever personal morality is put to the test by greater oppression, or where ostensibly laudable motivations are used to mask selfish greed, where mass hysteria overcomes reason and emotion is given precedence over common sense, there you’ll see the parallels. For this reason, it’s Miller’s most performed play. Plus a guy gets crushed between some rocks, which is wicked-awesome.

So, an amazing piece of drama with me in it. How much would you expect to pay for that in the West End? Thirty? Fifty? A hundred pounds a ticket? Well, turns out you can get them at a low, low price of EIGHT POUNDS!

Yeah, I know, now you’ve had some time to recover, you’re probably wondering where you can take advantage of this incredible offer? Well, you can book online right here.

I’ll see you there! Yaaaay!

Nice one, Shakespeare

Whenever someone starts dissing South London, my defence is always, “Well, it was good enough for Shakespeare.” I’m no scholar, y’understand, but being in Southwark seems to have done the Bard no harm at all.

Take, for instance, the stage direction “Exit, pursued by a bear” from A Winter’s Tale. There’s some debate over what is behind the frankly baffling inclusion of an ursine quadruped in this scene, but a popular suggestion is that, in fact, Shakespeare (or one of the other shareholders at the Globe) arranged to borrow said animal from one of the local bear-baiting pits.

A bear

 

And then there’s what might actually be an example of Elizabethan product placement in Twelfth Night - Antonio advises Sebastian that “in the south suburbs at the Elephant is best to lodge.” This is often mistaken for a reference to the Elephant and Castle, the inn that gives its name to the oddly-named area of London within walking distance. Actually, the Elephant and Castle hadn’t yet been built. There was, however, an inn called the Oliphaunt in Southwark which would have been contemporary.

Shakespeare's Glob

As with more-or-less everything related to Shakespeare scholarship, there’s more than one interpretation. One that’s relevant to this blog (because you know how much I like to stick to the point) is that it was in fact a slightly naughty joke relying on local knowledge. Southwark, at the time, was London’s embarrassing neighbour. The thing about a big, respectable city is that it needs somewhere to go where it can be, well, not respectable for a bit. Southwark, being separated from the City by the Thames, fulfilled this need nicely for several centuries. Theatres, cockpits, bearpits, gambling dens and brothels were the main tourist attractions in Shakespeare’s day. This is a very rambling way of saying that the Oliphaunt might well have been a brothel as well as an inn, and so Antonio was basically offering Sebastian advice on where to get laid. I like to imagine that there were a few nervous titters from members of the audience and mutters of, “or so I heard, anyway” from married men explaining the joke.

Ah, Southwark and prostitutes. They do go together quite neatly. Part of the area was known in medieval times as “the Whore’s Nest”. So numerous were the prostitutes that they received their own graveyard.

More like Cross BONERS, am I right? Sorry, that was tasteless.

This was the Cross Bones graveyard which, as you can see from the photo above, is still identifiable. It’s now a patch of waste ground on Redcross Way, but as you can see above, the Friends of Cross Bones are going to make damn sure it’s not lost.

The graveyard was built at the behest of the Bishop of Winchester, who felt that they really didn’t want those awful, awful prostitutes sharing a graveyard with respectable folk in the churchyard. Cross Bones isn’t hallowed ground. Now, if you’re a Christian, you may well be thinking that this isn’t exactly in the spirit of Christ, but it gets worse. See, a popular euphemistic nickname for prostitutes in Southwark was “Winchester Geese”. This curious phrase derives from the fact that, by Royal decree, prostitutes in Southwark were licensed by… the Bishop of Winchester. So no doubt the medieval Bishop who condemned the working girls to unconsecrated burial was simultaneously growing fat off the profits he made from them.

Far be it from me to say “pious hypocrite,” but fortunately Shakespeare did it for me. In Henry VI Part I he very comprehensively bashes the Bishop with a character called, yes, the Bishop of Winchester. It wasn’t unknown for historical plays to comment on the present day (so much so that Shakespeare almost got into some serious difficulties over the fact that many found the events of Richard II a little too similar to the real-life events of Elizabeth I), so I suspect Shakespeare was quite pleased to get the chance to legitimately have characters tell the Bishop,

Name not religion, for thou lovest the flesh,
And ne’er throughout the year to church thou go’st
Except it be to pray against thy foes.

and

Stand back, thou manifest conspirator,
Thou that contrivedst to murder our dead lord;
Thou that givest whores indulgences to sin:
I’ll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal’s hat,
If thou proceed in this thy insolence.

Man, I’d love to say that to my landlord, I can tell you.

Further reading:

http://www.into.org.uk/SouthwarkMysteries/CrossBonesGraveyard.htm