|
JR OUT LOUD
Archive>> |
A Jewish King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company!
|
|
.....or click HERE
to open in a new window |
| 
Greg Hicks (King Lear) and
Kathryn Hunter (Fool)
|
As The Royal Shakespeare Company opens its
new production of Shakespeare's King Lear
Judi Herman talks to actor Greg Hicks who plays Lear. Hicks
is already playing the title role in Julius Caesar
and Leontes in The Winter's Tale
(another of Shakespeare's kings who acts tyrannically towards
his own family); but before he trained as an actor, he considered
training for the Rabbinate. For JR
Out Loud he tells Judi Herman about his take
on Lear, Caesar and Leontes – and about his upbringing
in Leicester, where his father was one of the founders of
the city's Liberal Synagogue. But first you'll hear Greg Hicks
as Lear in a brief extract from the famous storm scene from
King Lear.
King Lear continues in the RSC
repertoire in Stratford, then Newcastle, London and next year
New York. The Winter's Tale and
Julius Caesar return to the repertoire
in July. Book online at www.rsc.org.uk.
And if you want to check the plots of any of Shakespeare's
plays simply follow
this link! |
| |
|
Modelling Spitfires
|
|
.....or click HERE
to open in a new window |
|
Julie Higginson, Vanessa Rosenthal and Chris Wilkinson
|
Award-winning writer/performer Vanessa Rosenthal
has a great track record both on stage and radio. She's currently
keeping up her track record by appearing in one of her most
successful plays Modelling Spitfires,
at London's New End Theatre. Without being
preachy and with insight and a light touch that extends to
plenty of humour too, the play explores the effects of schizophrenia
and bipolar disorder on family life*. And
because her theatre company Yellow Leaf aims
to give voice to the experience of the over fifties, the family
in question are middle-aged siblings Maurice and Marcia. Vanessa
herself plays Marcia. Judi Herman is a long-standing admirer
of Vanessa's work as co-creator of the radio series Writing
the Century, dramatizing the diaries of so-called
ordinary people to span the whole of the twentieth century,
so she was pleased to have this chance to catch up with her
and find out more about her work for JR
Out Loud, starting with why she called her
play 'Modelling Spitfires'.
| 
Julie Higginson and Chris Wilkinson |
| |
Modelling Spitfires is at the New
End Theatre in Hampstead, North London until 7 March.
The box office number is 0780 033 2733 or book online at www.newendtheatre.co.uk.
In the extract from Modelling Spitfires, Chris
Wilkinson plays Maurice, Julie Higginson
plays Janet and Vanessa Rosenthal the writer
herself plays Marcia.
CLICK
HERE to find out more about the ongoing project
Writing the Century and read fascinating
diary excerpts sent in by members of the public.
* Research has shown that
one in four people will experience mental health problems
during their lifetime. One in six will experience mild moderate
depression, one in twenty will develop clinical depression
and 1% of the population will be diagnosed with schizophrenia
|
|
| |
Watch out for more new audio on JR
Out Loud later this month including:
The Young Vic’s latest production
Sweet Nothings based on Austrian
Jewish writer Arthur Schnitzler’s
Liebelei; Stephen Sondheim’s
Anyone Can Whistle, which
comes to the Jermyn Street Theatre
in his 80th Birthday year; and Ghost Stories,
at The Lyric Theatre Hammersmith until
3 April - we'll hear from the writers, Andy
Nyman (co-writer and creator of Derren Brown
– Mind Control and Trick of the Mind)
and Jeremy Dyson (co-writer
of The League of Gentlemen), who first met
at Jewish summer camp! |
|
| |
|
Judi Herman meets a pair of ‘Jewish Lads’
|
|
.....or click HERE
to open in a new window |
| 
Dreamboats and Petticoats
|
The musical Dreamboats and Petticoats
with a score of 1960s classic hits and a book by Laurence
Marks and Maurice Gran is back in
the West End and on tour round the UK. The great comedy team
who brought us such comedy classics as Birds of a Feather
and Goodnight Sweetheart met at the Jewish Lads Brigade
and they drew on their own youth club experiences for this
story of a pair of aspiring rock stars, who are rivals in
love for the same girl. Judi Herman got to
meet Marks and Gran.
N.B. The musical has its own website at www.dreamboatsandpetticoats.com
|
|
Building bridges – Friends of the Earth Middle East
bring together students from Israel, Jordan and Palestine
for Eco-Workshops on Kibbutz Lotan
This audio is in two parts as it is a programme-length
feature
|
|
.....or click HERE
to open in a new window |
| |
| |
|
At the end of last year, even as events in Copenhagen hit
the headlines, Friends of the Earth Middle East
brought together around one hundred secondary school students
aged 14-17 from Israel, Jordan and Palestine for eco-workshops
on Kibbutz Lotan, in Israel’s Arava
Desert, which is run entirely on sustainable principles.
So the students learned how to build sustainably in this apparently
inhospitable desert country – making bricks and building
with them, using refuse and old tyres to build walls and learning
about geodesic infrastructures to build mud ‘cottages’.
But perhaps the most important thing that
all the students say they got out of the experience is the
chance to meet each other. And up to now that had actually
meant ‘the other’, as Judi Herman finds out when
she joins the students first at a brick-making and building
workshop.
|
| |
|
As the students learn to build walls out of tyres filled
in with trash and then covered up with mud, Judi finds time
for another word with Iyad, the Palestinian
coodinator for Friends of the Earth Middle East.
|
|
.....or click HERE
to open in a new window |
If you want to find more about workshops and courses
on green living on Kibbutz Lotan from all ages from
schoolchildren to senior citizens, lasting from a few hours
to a few months, visit Lotan’s website at kibbutzlotan.com.
And you can find out more about Friends of the Earth
Middle East and how to support their work on their
website at foeme.org.
N.B. The music you’ll hear is Shlomo
Gronich’s We brought peace upon
us, sung by a band of Jewish and Arab pop stars
and musicians with a chorus of young people from Peace
Child Israel drama workshops, boosted by children
from both Arab and Jewish Primary Schools. To find out more
about Peace Child visit www.mideastweb.org/peacechild/
CLICK
HERE if you want to know what the words mean,
based on ideas from the children themselves.
|
|
