SOMETHING IS STIRRING IN ENGLAND
Anglo-Saxon news -
Jerusalem - a play for today's England
Telegraph Jerusalem - a play for today's England The phenomenon of Jerusalem, as it transfers from the West End to Broadway, is the theatrical event of the decade.
by Sarah Crompton Published: 7:00AM BST 17 Apr 2010
A scene from the hit West End production of Jerusalem Photo: ALASTAIR MUIR On a bitterly cold morning early this week, 19-year-old Ken Nwosu dragged himself out of his warm bed in Hackney at 3am and persuaded his father to drive him to the West End. By 4am, he was sitting on the pavement outside the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, first in line to buy tickets for that night's performance of Jerusalem.
"I'd heard that if you got there by 5am, it was too late," he explains. "By 10am, when they actually start selling the 20 day seats, there are
200 people in the queue. So I just wanted to be sure I got a ticket."
By 10.30pm that night, Ken, an aspiring drama student, was back on his feet, cheering his heart out alongside the rest of a full house, at the end of the performance. "It was amazing," he says.
Amazing is one word to describe the theatrical phenomenon that is Jerusalem in the West End. Extraordinary is another. It is a huge hit, yet it breaks every single rule in the book. It is a new play, three hours long, about a subject that you can't sum up in a sentence. It has two intervals, a 16-strong cast, and some very ripe language.
And although it features a performance from Mark Rylance of the sort that people will tell their grandchildren about, he is hardly a household name. What's more, he is playing a Romany squatter, who deals drugs and serves alcohol to the disaffected youth of a Wiltshire village – hardly your typical West End hero.
Yet Jerusalem has fed into the zeitgeist in the most unexpected manner, earning itself an unprecedented standing ovation every night. There aren't just queues full of people of all ages for the £10 day seats, but for the restricted view "pay what you like" tickets, and for returns. Tickets are changing hands on eBay for treble their face value.
Celebrities from Melvyn Bragg and Stephen Sondheim, to the Doctor Whos David Tennant and Matt Smith, to Stella McCartney and Gwyneth Paltrow have already sat in the stalls. Those who haven't been yet are getting increasingly desperate as the show has only one of its 12-weeks left to run; co-producer Sonia Friedman has been the recipient of bouquets as people try to prise their way in.
This desperation to see the play has been heightened by the fact that it always had a restricted duration because by the time a theatre had been found to host the production, Rylance had committed to another play due to open in June. While it may have inflamed the tempers of those who can’t get in, this limited availability is part of what has made Jerusalem such an event.
Yet Friedman readily admits that when the 356-seat Royal Court, where Jez Butterworth's play originated, approached her about mounting it as co-production with them in the West End, she had grave doubts that it would thrive. "I wasn't at all convinced that it was commercial. It fails absolutely every single test," she says. "But I couldn't get it out of my mind. Then Tom Stoppard sent me a text saying: 'You cannot call yourself a producer if you don't transfer Jerusalem to the West End and we don't deserve to have a serious West End if Jerusalem can't transfer.' I thought, he's absolutely right, I have to be a part of this."
Jerusalem is Shakespearean in its scope and changes of mood. It centres on Johnny "Rooster" Byron, a Lord of Misrule who is facing down the authorities that want to evict him from his illegal encampment in the woods. Through him and his resonant question "What is an English forest for?" the play explores questions of national identity, the decline of rural communities, and the encroachment of the state on the free spirit of an individual. At its core, embodied in Rylance's charismatic, dangerous performance, is a howl of anguish that a once-proud nation has lost all sense of itself.
The moment it started to play to audiences at the Royal Court last July, it was clear that it had struck a chord. Director Ian Rickson explains: "The best new plays are tuned into the collective unconscious. Playwrights are clairvoyant, they warn us what we might become and intuit what we could be. In Jerusalem, there's something at its heart to do with defiance that really speaks to people."
Its unusually large cast means Jerusalem costs £90,000 a week to stage, but that size and scope is part of what audiences have flocked to see: it is a uniquely theatrical experience that you need to be there to share.
This is exactly what the playwright Jez Butterworth hoped for: "I very much wanted to present a real spirit on stage, not an approximation. That's something that theatre can do which few other forms can." But he is as astounded as anyone by the play's success. "You dream that this sort of thing might happen. But I think it shows that people want their theatre to be challenging not palliative."
He first started writing the play in 2002, but Rickson always wanted Rylance in the central role and since he was then running the Globe, it got put back in a drawer. By 2009, its time had come, but when the cast first started to assemble the play was only semi-finished.
Rickson says: "I was auditioning actors for parts that hadn't even been written and directing scenes I hadn't read. But I accepted that in the middle of it, Jez was generating incredible stuff."
Certainly watching the audience rise to its feet at the play's close, as Rylance invokes an older, different England, there is a sense in which they are not just responding to the greatness of his performance – though they are – but to a deeper, darker call to arms, a sense of something that lurks at the back of the current election campaign but is never spelt out by any party or politician.
It is almost as if Jerusalem, in the supposedly safe setting of the West End, is inviting a consideration of themes too difficult to be faced in any other forum but the theatre.
In this way, the Royal Court's artistic director Dominic Cooke, thinks it reflects the way in which theatre has moved closer to the centre of the national culture. "Television drama is in a sorry state and the type of originality that used to be there has vanished. Yet people still want to engage with the debate – so that's why theatre has to be innovative and keep addressing those questions."
When Jerusalem ends its West End run next Saturday, those questions will continue to be asked both in the Broadway run and regional tour that are under discussion – but also in the homes of those like Ken who were lucky enough to get tickets for one of the theatrical events of the decade.
http://2011trust.org/
New trust celebrates 400 years of King James Bible http://www.christiantoday.co.uk/article/new.trust.celebrates.400.years.of .king.james.bible/22624.htm by Daniel BlakePosted: Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 9:29 (GMT)
A new trust under the patronage of Prince Charles is to be formed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible.
The 2011 Trust will assemble scholars from across the nation and will hold conferences, concerts, readings, lectures, seminars and ecumenical gatherings. Schools will also be encouraged to run projects to generate interest in the literary, cultural and religious legacy of the Bible, while top UK universities will be giving lectures on text translation and analysis.
The occasion will also be used to promote interdenominational and interfaith dialogue, reports the Times.
The main aim of the 2011 Trust is to celebrate "the near universal cultural importance of the King James Bible; its contribution to the English language and its impact on subsequent generations".
Frank Field, a Labour MP and chairman of the trust, said on its website, "The 2011 Trust has been established by Bible Society to celebrate the
400th anniversary of the King James Bible which was completed in 1611. There have been few more important single publications and its impact has been considerable and wide ranging."
The King James Version was commissioned by King James I of England, who ascended the throne of England in 1603 following the death of Queen Elizabeth I.
A team of scholars was assembled very early in his reign to work on translating the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek into contemporary English. After seven years the work was completed and the King James Version was published. By the 18th century the "KJV" was the only version of the Bible being used in Protestant churches in the country.
http://2011trust.org
Ed West Ed West is a journalist and social commentator who specialises in politics, religion and low culture.
Frank Field: you can't understand England without reading the King James Bible http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100026876/frank-field-you-cant-u nderstand-england-without-reading-the-king-james-bible/ By Ed West UK Last updated: February 21st, 2010
36 Comments
I'm beginning to suspect that Frank Field probably has more wisdom in one of his nasal hairs than the entire cabinet and shadow cabinet combined.
On the radio this morning, the Birkenhead MP was explaining why, as a director of a group called the 2011 Trust, which was established to mark
400 years of the King James Bible, he thought the book was so important.
"You can't really, properly understand this country -- where it's come from and maybe where it's going to -- without understanding a language which we gave to the rest of the world," he said. "And if there's one book that made that imprint, it's the King James Bible."
He's right -- the King James Bible or Authorised Version is essential to our language, culture and history. Politicians spout on about "citizenship classes" to teach "Britishness" to pupils, whatever that means, but the British values being taught are really just late 20th pan-Western Leftist values.
To really understand England, to really be a part of this country, a man has to understand the Bible -- it is the keystone of our culture. Everything else -- "fair play", "tolerance" or whatever Gordon Brown thinks are "core British values", as if other nations define themselves by their intolerance and cheating -- is what Christopher Caldwell called "thin gruel", just a load of meaningless multiculti mantras.
I'm currently reading the Bible myself, about half-way through Deuteronomy (I almost gave up on Numbers, which is really tough going). I actually started because I heard Tony Blair say the Koran was a peaceful book and, instinctively disbelieving anything he says, I wanted to see who was right, Robert Spencer or Karen Armstrong (both intelligent, well-read people who have come to completely opposite opinions about the Islamic holy book). I've read histories of the Koran and Islam, and much of the book, but never the entire thing. But then I thought it would be a shame to have read another religion's holy book without first having fully read my own from cover to cover. And besides, one wouldn't watch Return of the Jedi without first seeing Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.
I regret not reading the Bible as a child -- partly this was because Catholics aren't encouraged to, but it certainly wasn't helped by the translations we were given, mostly written in anodyne, plodding language. The King James Bible, in contrast, is a work of the most beautiful, poetic, Shakespearean English -- which is why, I'm guessing, Richard Dawkins is part of the 2011 Trust. William Tyndale, who wrote about 80 per cent of the King James Bible and was burnt at the stake for his troubles, is one of the most underrated Englishmen in history. So, for that matter, is Frank Field.
Rare Orwell book fetches £86,000
A rare signed first edition of George Orwell's first full-length work has sold for £86,000 at auction.
The immaculate copy of Down And Out In Paris And London - complete with dust jacket - had a pre-sale guide price of £2,500-£3,500.
The book was purchased by a private client at Gorringes Auction House in Lewes, East Sussex.
Aaron Dean, book specialist at the auction house, said: "I would be shocked if it isn't a record."
Inside the book, Orwell - whose real name was Eric Blair - wrote to his agent Leonard Moore: "With the author's kind regards, to Mr LP Moore without whose kind assistance this book would never have been published. Eric Blair, 24.12.32."
Including the buyers premium, the book sold for a total of £101,050.
Mr Dean added: "The two things that were rare about this were that it was personally inscribed by the author with a nice little ditty. “ I was absolutely stunned, the room was absolutely stunned and the vendors, who were in the room, were thoroughly happy � Aaron Dean, auctioneer
"Secondly, it had its dust jacket. No first editions of this book with dust jackets have been seen for 27 years.
"To put the significance of that in perspective, last year a copy which was not in great condition and didn't have a dust jacket sold for £13,200.
"This one was an absolutely brilliant copy. The dust jacket had a little bit of wear and tear but, when you took it off, the book was in mint condition."
Mr Dean said there was strong bidding, with 10 people on the telephone, and it was bought by a man in the room.
He said: "I opened the bidding at £5,000 and someone immediately jumped in to take it to £15,000 and from there it bounced up to £86,000.
"I knew it would do well, I had a lot people who were hugely interested in it and the consensus was that it would reach somewhere between £30,000 and £40,000.
"But I wasn't expecting that price. I was absolutely stunned, the room was absolutely stunned and the vendors, who were in the room, were thoroughly happy."
Down And Out In Paris And London is an autobiographical work by Orwell, split into two parts, on the theme of poverty in the two capital cities.
It was published in January 1933 by Victor Gollancz, after being rejected by two other major publishers.
Orwell, who died in 1950, went on to write two of the 20th century's most famous novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/858
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