Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More bootiful booty from museum and exhibition gift shops...

1) TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST FOLIO OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS (1623) - Martin Droeshout

I bought this in Stratford-on-Avon at Shakespeare's birthplace - it seemed the most obvious purchase really.  The First Folio was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, by John Heminges and Henry Condell who were actors in The King's Men, the acting company that the Bard wrote for.  Although many of Shakespeare's plays had been published in smaller Quarto publications, these were cheaply produced and fluctuated in quality. 

The First Folio compiled 36 plays, 18 of which for the first time including THE TEMPEST, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, MEASURE FOR MEASURE, JULIUS CAESAR and MACBETH.  It is believed about 750 editions were published and is now considered one of the most important publications in history.  A copy was sold in 2001 at Christies, NY for over £3 million.  21 year-old Martin Droeshout's engraving has become the one that most Shakespeare imagery is based on.

2) PLEIN AIR (1890-1) - Ramon Casas

I bought this in the MNAC Gallery in Barcelona which celebrates Catalonian art.  In 1890 the 25 year-old Casas was living and working in Paris and his painting 'Plein Air' shows the influence of the Impressionist painters on him.

Casas' painting has a haunting quality as a smartly-dressed woman sits outside at a table in the gloaming, staring at a man across the empty courtyard who is turned away from her gaze, looking out of the gate to the town beyond.  The white of the tablecloth and the red wine in the carafe is contrasted against the black of the woman's outfit giving the viewer a focus in the surrounding muted colours.

3) MAP READING (1932) - Stanley Spencer

I bought this at Somerset House when they recreated Stanley Spencer's 19 canvasses in situ as they appear at the Sandham Memorial Chapel in Burghclere, Hampshire.  The Chapel was commissioned to honor Lieutenant Henry Sandham who died in 1920 by his sister and brother-in-law.  They turned to Stanley Spencer to decorate the Chapel with the paintings for which he drew on his memories and observations while working as an orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps in WWI.

Over his cycle of paintings we follow Spencer's experiences from the training hospital in Bristol where he was confronted with the injured and maimed from the Front in the benign surroundings of the hospital to being an orderly in the field in Macedonia.  In "Map Reading", an officer studies a map of the Macedonian terrain while his soldiers lounge on either side of the road, some clambering among bilberry bushes for food while one sits feeding the officer's horse who stares out at the viewer with an accusing stare.  As usual, what I love about Spencer's painting is the topsy-turvy lay-out, the humanity and gentle humour that he finds in the scene, and in particular the glaring horse - is he angry about being used as a desk by the officer or at the world that has made the situation happen?

4) THE ANNUNCIATION (CELL 3) (1438) - Fra Angelico

 

I bought this at the former Dominican friary San Marco in Florence which now houses many works by the Renaissance painter Fra Angelico who lived there from 1436 to 1445.  The first floor of the friary contains a number of frescoes by Fra Angelico that make it an essential place to visit for any art lover.  As you climb the broad staircase and turn the corner to the last flight up to the first floor you see ahead of you his magnificent fresco of "The Annunciation", one of the great works of Renaissance religious art, but the first floor also has a wonderful collection of frescoes that he painted for each of the monk's cells as subjects for contemplation during prayer. 

The austere beauty of these works is reflected in this fresco of The Annunciation.  Only a few doors down from the more-well known and larger fresco that greets you as you turn the stairs, this one has a stripped down beauty which highlights the Fra's use of perspective and his genius for distilling a deep tension between his figures:  Mary kneels in a pale pink gown, disturbed from her reading by the Angel Gabriel whose multi-coloured wings hide the lurking figure of Saint Dominic who bears witness to what is about to happen.  The glowing simplicity and held moment in time dazzles.

5) SUPPER IN EMMAUS (1861) - Augusto Betti

I bought this at the Medici Chapel in Florence.  I can find no reference to this anywhere online so guess I will just have to describe why I like it!

Betti gives us a reduced almost geometric look to the scene where Jesus appeared to two of his Apostles days after rising from the dead and their rapt attention is offset by the servant who is pouring water out of a jug and the dozing, scruffy dog under the table.  Outside the evening falls...  I like the unfussy painting which stood out against some of the more florid works in the Medici Chapel.

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

This year marks the 30th anniversary of my only visit to Stratford-upon-Avon.  Why the long delay in returning?  Well, my reason for going in 1988 was to see Barbara Cook in CARRIE: THE MUSICAL.  That left a deep mental scar which has turned me hysterical whenever a trip to Stratford has been mentioned since.  Even the pleasure of meeting a rueful Cook afterward was not enough to wipe out memories of that show... see, bad musicals based on films aren't a recent thing.

But the decision was made to visit Stratford last week during my two-week holiday from work so we tied it in with a visit to the theatre to see the RSC's latest revival of Shakespeare's comedy THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

I had only seen the play before when the National Theatre staged it's one-and-only production of it in 1995, with a cast including Denis Quilley as Falstaff and Brenda Bruce as Mistress Quickly.  The production was directed by Terry Hands... who had also directed CARRIE.  How cyclical theatre can be eh?  By the way - speaking of WIVES - Terry Hands shares with his fellow-RSC artistic and associate directors Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn and John Caird the staggering number of 15 wives!  Shaggers.

But here we were, in the unfriendly surroundings of the RST with it's warren-like stairs and passageways - not to mention the ghastly high-stool seats we were in - to see Fiona Laird's revival of Shakespeare's comedy of circa 1597 which included an extended introduction of it's supposed origins: allegedly Queen Elizabeth asked Shakespeare for another play featuring Sir John Falstaff, preferably a comedy of him in love.

Indeed the play feels like a star vehicle for the actor playing Sir John, and here he was wonderfully brought to life by David Troughton in true rambunctious fashion. Thanks to a very good fat suit he is truly larger-than-life and gave a performance that rattled the rafters.  Thank goodness too because he was surrounded by cartoonish portrayals that tipped the play into CARRY ON STRATFORD!

The action is transplanted to the garish world of Essex in it's awful collective lack of taste.  Sir John Falstaff has found himself financially embarrassed so hits upon the idea of romancing the two wealthiest wives of the town; what he doesn't know is that they are best friends and, when they show each other his identical letters of love, decide to get their revenge on him.

Throw into the dizzying mix that Mistress Page's daughter is being chased by various suitors that her parents approve of but she secretly loves the sweet but bumbling young Fenton and that Mistress Ford's husband is sure she is unfaithful to him so disguises himself to ask Falstaff to seduce his wife for a fee.

Although most of the attempts of desperate gag-cracking left me cold, I will admit that the production was not without a pleasant charm and there were nice performances from the Merry Wives themselves - Rebecca Lacey as Mistress Ford and Beth Cordingley as Mistress Page - Jonathan Cullen as the English-mangling French doctor Dr. Caius and Luke Newberry as the accident-prone Fenton.

But there were two calamitous performances from Ishia Bennison as Mistress Quickley and Katy Brittain as a gender-swapped Hostess of The Garter Inn, screeching and clattering around in leopardskin coats and dresses: the unholy spawn of a gene pool consisting of Barbara Windsor and Lesley Joseph.

Fiona Laird left no bargain-basement gag untouched and we got Brexit, wheelie-bins, viral YouTube videos - "FENTON!!" - audience singalongs of "Bread of Heaven", and knob and bum jokes galore.  I felt that the grafting of the The Only Way Is Essex onto Shakespeare's comedy drowned it; rather than laughing with Shakespeare's characters, the thinly-veiled snobbery of the approach made you laugh *at* them instead.

As I said there were some nice performances to lighten the load and Lez Brotherston's designs were an eye-popping delight and luckily there was David Troughton to bring a whiff of real bawdy Bard realness to give us some genuine laughs.  I will not soon forget his roaring disdain of having an egg in his goblet of Sack: "I'll have no pullet-sperm in my brewage!"

The good news is that I was so taken with Stratford that hopefully it won't be 30 years till I return again.