Written on the Heart

As 2011 fades away, the RSC delivers its contribution to the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Authorised (King James) Version of the Bible.

Frankly, the first twenty minutes (or so) of Written on the Heart are a bit of a challenge: we seem to have landed in the midst of umpteen Rowan Williams lookalikes, all getting hot under the ruff on seemingly piffling points of translation: 'church' or 'congregation'; 'confess' or 'acknowledge'; 'heal' or 'save'? Oh please.

Clever move. With 'Why does any of this matter?' hovering, Edgar begins to forge a chain of profoundly human stories spanning more than 80 years of turbulent history - and completely justifies his perfect choice of title.

(And there are shelf-loads of history to get across: one shudders at the clunky nightmare that might have come from a less gifted dramatist. Top marks for artful exposition.)

Contrasting translators bookend the story: Jacobean prelate Lancelot Andrewes, whose devotion to the King's project may raise him to an Archbishopric - and, back in the 1530s, William Tyndale, exiled, imprisoned and facing death for daring to translate the scriptures so that both ploughboy and priest might have equal access to the word of God.

So far so worthy documentary? Far from it.

Edgar's swift and subtle storytelling draws us in to the passions implicit in the story: immense self-sacrifice, courage and vision - and also compromise, self-interest and betrayal.

And along the way he delivers a fizzingly engaging two-hander central scene, incorporating profound theology, political controversy - and (emphatically) many laughs as well as moments of tear-prickling emotion.

Director Gregory Doran has, as he so often does, gathered a Rolls Royce cast: special mention to the magisterial Oliver Ford Davies as Andrewes and Stephen Boxer whose William Tyndale had me heading home to read up this great man's story.

Written on the Heart runs at the Swan Theatre, S-u-A, until March. Don't miss it.

Gasping

Tsk! Tickets for this remarkable entertainment should be overprinted with a health warning: 'Severe danger of hyperventilation'.

Resistance is futile as James Corden and fellow cast members serve up their sensational seaside soufflé (we're in Brighton 1963). 

Very, very funny - and, for me, far more engaging than the mechanical mayhem of 'traditional' farce. The stunning sight gags and multiple mis-identifications are shot through with real human emotion. 


Corden is a revelation - outrageous, audacious and, despite his ample build, possessed of a physical finesse that many a ballet dancer might envy. 

Winter blues looming? Ditch the Prozac - see this show.

Chippy

Mr Gnome and I have emerged from tonight's performance of the RSC's new production of Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade. 

Does this classic example of the 1960s 'theatre of cruelty' still have the power to shock?

You bet.

But it wasn't the profusion of prosthetic willies or the character with compulsive masturbation issues (I know, SO last century) that left one speechless.

It was the Act 1 stunt when cast member Lisa Hammond tried to solicit a sub from an unsuspecting audience member: 'Oh dear, I'm so tired after the performance that I haven't the energy to cook for myself - could you stand me the price of some chips?'

The kindly chump offered her a tenner. Which, naturally, she spurned, berating him for patronising her (she uses a wheelchair). A fellow cast member chipped in, calling the nice man the (in most circs) still unspeakable word. How rude!

So come on, RSC, in what rarefied world is £10 not enough for a single fish supper? Oh please.

Lisa should have asked central character the Marquis de Sade - he'd organise a whip-round before you could say 'Batter my cod piece'.

That said, cast and crew dish up a rollicking revolutionary romp, peppered with a dash of political provocation. And it's all over by 10pm. Hurrah!

Inspired by Monsieur Marat, I whizzed home for an early bath.

And, by the way, Rory is available.

Unhappy couple

'Well, it rattles along, doesn't it?' remarks an elderly audience member at intermission. 

And it does: Michael Boyd's extraordinary, compelling and iconoclastic new production of Macbeth (Shakespeare's shortest play) opens the renewed Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

But if this is an express train, Bill the Bard has us bound headlong for Hell, as Boyd and his cast take us on a harrowing journey into the darkest regions of the human heart.

Boyd's boldest stroke is to re-imagine the 'supernatural solicitings' that so famously awaken Macbeth's dormant yearnings for ever greater status and power. To do so he (shockingly?) cuts some of the most famous scenes in the play, presenting the three 'witches' as (I'm guessing) they have never been seen before. Purists may have palpitations.

Not that the original production in the early 1600s was without its dangers: a play about the murder of a Scottish king, performed before King James I, newly arrived from Scotland to succeed the childless Elizabeth I. 

And whether you're a monarch or the man or woman on the bus, 'succession' is crucial to the well-being of everyone in the kingdom - our hopes often resting on the vulnerable shoulders of a child. And Shakespeare's on-stage children rarely see a happy ending: most die. As did his only son, Hamnet, aged 11 in 1596.

This play has more children and babies (seen and unseen) than in any of the other tragedies, their experience casting a grisly light on the consequences of the Macbeths' terrible betrayals. And it's Boyd's development of this theme that makes this show so disturbing, amply fulfilling the spirit of the text - if not the letter. 

Fine work from Jonathan Slinger and Aislin Mcguckin as the Macbeths, disintegrating before our eyes. Massive hurrahs for lighting designer Jean Kalman and composer Tom Armstrong. Designer Tom Piper sets the action in a vast space reminiscent of a crumbling, desecrated cathedral. (The new auditorium triumphantly fulfils the promise of being able to combine epic with intimate.)

The vast back wall holds a silent clue to Boyd's vision for the play: between the shattered stained glass and statuary the eye picks out a shallow space that once held the sacred building's focal point: but the cross has been removed.

Here's Charles Spencer's review for the Daily Telegraph.

Will goes to Spain...

A strange and rather wonderful experience awaits Bard buffs at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon: a Shakespeare play where you've no idea how it's going to end.

OK , for Shakespeare read 'Shakespeare'. This is an intriguing 're-imagining' of the celebrated 'lost play' Cardenio, its existence a matter of historical fact, but which never made it in to 1623 First Folio edition of the 'complete works', seemingly lost for ever.

Fast forward to 1727 and the premiere of The Double Falsehood, a crowd-pleaser from long-forgotten playwright Lewis Theobald, who (savvy marketer) claimed his work was based on original manuscripts of Cardenio (in his possession), a collaboration between Jacobean giants John Fletcher and William Shakespeare.

Oh and - add another name - the plot is drawn from Cervantes' Don Quixote, which Shakespeare could have read in Thomas Shelton's 1612 translation.

Scholars seem to agree that Theobald's text has stylistic echoes of both Shakespeare and Fletcher.

Still with me? I know, you'd be forgiven for guessing that the show on offer in Stratford must be a dryer-than-dust experiment in academic re-construction.

Wrong.

Wisely acknowledging the impossibility of recreating the 'play behind the play', director Greg Doran has approached Theobald's text with a light touch and with an imagination drenched in years of Bard-related empathy as both an actor and a director.

The result is a play that stands robustly on its own feet, providing a richly entertaining evening.

Doran and his production team clearly relish the opportunities of the Spanish setting, wreathing the action in luscious chiaroscuro and wafting it along on clouds of incense, intercut with languorous guitar music.

Good news, too, for Bardphobics: the plot is an easy-to-follow tale of love and friendship betrayed. The villain of the piece being the outrageously dreadful Don Fernando, all posturing, posing and perfect pectorals. The eponymous hero is one of his three victims.

What with nuns, a fiesta, a spunky cross-dressing heroine, the old abduction-via-coffin ruse, full-on flamenco (plus a wee bit of auto-flagellation), this is a show with something for everyone, performed with panache by a Rolls Royce cast.

For me, the ending raised some worrying questions - as to the forgiveness granted to the truly appalling Fernando.

That said, a must-see and a terrific opening to the RSC's 50th anniversary season.

Olé!
And here's what the DT's Charles Spencer had to say.

Browns study

Ever eager to toot his metaphorical trumpet for all that's small-scale, excellent and unpretentious, Mr Gnome has recently revisited top-notch Coventry eatery Brown's Cafe Bar.

Not to be confused with the excellent chain of Browns restaurants, this down-town venue is a one-off, housed in a curvaceous Sixties architectural gem, with a gently bo-ho, arty ambience to match.

The evening menu is based around plated meals priced at between £6 and £8. Massive choice of vegetables and potatoes. Portion control? Forget it. The hungry are fed.

Mad for it

Hurrah for modern technology enabling one to enjoy television programmes when (and where) one chooses.

Current addiction is the remarkable US series Mad Men, a saga of satisfyingly Dickensian scope and complexity set in the high-energy world of a Madison Avenue advertising agency in the early 1960s.

It's one of those shows that would remain compulsively viewable if the sound failed, so sumptuous is the conjuring up of the styles of the day: the hair, suits, furniture, specs, hats and, wafting through every scene, the billowing clouds of cigarette smoke.

These are the styles and 'looks' that I pored over as a child in back numbers of Readers' Digest and National Geographic, featuring in mouth-watering colour the station wagons, refrigerators and washing machines that symbolised the prosperity of Eisenhower's America. Everything bigger, bolder and more exciting than the pint-sized versions available to cash-strapped British consumers.

At the centre of the story is alpha-male ad executive Don Draper, all slicked-back hair, chiselled features and sharp, cynical intelligence. Perfect job, beautiful blonde wife, two children, gleaming home in the suburbs - oh yes, and a mistress plus (early in series 1) a mistress-in-waiting.

No wonder he sometimes skips the early-morning push-up routine.

Don, finger magically on the pulse of the times, is selling dreams of prosperity and well-being, motivated by some as yet only hinted-at compulsion to escape his past. And yet despite his trophy wife, home and possessions, he's restless and insecure. Hence the Dickens reference.

Mad Men is funny, sharp, perceptive and absorbing. It's going to keep me intrigued all winter....

And rather uncomfortable as well.

I think I'll fix myself an old-fashioned and light up a Lucky.

The Sacred Made Real

To the National Gallery to view this extraordinary exhibition of Spanish religious sculpture and painting from the seventeenth century: The Sacred Made Real.

As the title suggests, the works on show are religious images - and the majority have not come from art galleries, but from the churches where they remain objects of devotion.

For me the most striking are the sculptures which, according to the rigid craft demarcations of the era, were carved by one artist and later painted by another.

The aim was to create an almost theatrical illusion of reality, which would have been enhanced by the dramatic lighting of the space for which the works were created.

And, of course, the overall intention was to evoke contemplation, awe and sympathy in the viewer, thus inviting him or her to deeper devotion.

The subject matter is uniformly dark: friars contemplate the cross, a hooded Francis of Assisi gazes at a skull, and the head of John the Baptist lies on its plate, every sinew and artery of the severed neck rendered with surgical accuracy.

And then there are the images of Christ's passion: Jesus stands flayed and bleeding; he hangs dying upon the cross; or, as shown above, he lies stark and dead.

The message, expressed with brutal clarity, is of the human, physical reality of Christ's suffering and death: Ecce Homo - behold the man.

The effect, for me, in the darkened rooms of the Sainsbury Wing, was powerful, horrifying and, well, all a bit too much.

I guess it must be to with the presentation of these fearful images in isolation from the story that led up to them - and of the subsequent' third-day' event which transfigures them.

Without the context, the show seemed oppressive, gruesome and deeply morbid - an upmarket chamber of horrors.

Messiah

To London to hear and see English National Opera's new staging of Handel's Messiah.

One of the most popular works in the classical reportoire, Messiah is customarily produced on the concert platform with formal ranks of orchestra, chorus and soloists.

It's an excellent way to relish the composer's gloriously tuneful score and to be drawn in to librettist Charles Jenner's artful selection of texts from the King James version of the Bible, all of which invite us to ponder the identity and significance of Jesus Christ.

But this is definitely not a static concert performance. A huge cast of chorus, dancers, soloists and children conjure up a series of 'scenes' in which the familar choruses and arias are presented in a stylised, yet instantly recognizable, contemporary urban setting.

The spare design hints at offices, a school, the street, the park - an ordinary world, into which someone extraordinary is breaking in.

There's no attempt to offer a literal presentation of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus.

But the show is all the more powerful for the obliqueness of the images created on the vast stage of the London Coliseum: small boy, fizzing with energy, runs through the crowd; a young woman finds a stranger has left lilies on her bed; a classically clunky infants' nativity play, suddenly glows with numinous meaning; a young woman lies dying on a hospital bed....

All of the familar choruses and arias are presented in the correct order, magnificently sung by a cracking chorus and top-notch soloists - you can hear every word.

Warner's great achievement, in my view, is to present this great work with such freshness and imagination that it's as if we're seeing and hearing it for the first time.

I have no idea as to Deborah Warner's own belief in the words being sung. But what's beyond doubt is that she believes that they matter - and that the Messiah narrative is beautiful and meaningful and transformative. It makes a difference.

A great way to begin another Advent season.

Cheers?

To the Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, for the very first performance of a new play by the sibling writing team of Vyacheslav and Mikhail Durnenkov.

In just under two hours, the pay follows hapless soldier Ilya's return to his hometown after service in the Chechnya war.

Ilya's head injury has left him slow of speech and movement - and with a highly dangerous intolerance for alcohol. And the authors make it plain that in this dreary Russian 'Anytown', having an intolerance to vodka is as problematic as being allergic to water.

So bleak and monochrome is the lifestyle depicted that hitting the bottle seems an entirely appropriate survival strategy.

Ilya's homecoming kicks off with the discovery that his wife has taken up with a new man, and that his little boy has no idea who he is. Then things start to go downhill.

An election is in the offing and each candidate is desperate to have an endorsement from the returning 'hero'. Cue high-definiton depictions of the boorish mayor, the loopily sadistic police chief (he has a Nazi weaponry 'thing') and the seemingly honourable editor of the the local paper.

I followed Ilya's entanglements with this unholy Trinity with a growing sense of despair and sadness, which continued to the play's predictably anguished conclusion.

By now you'll have worked out that The Drunks is not a chuckle-fest. And it was probably wise of the RSC to write to ticket-buyers to warn them of the play's scabrous language.

And yet the 'stage world' created by director Anthony Neilson, designer Tom Piper and the brilliant cast remains uncomfortably and insistently in my head.

I'd like the play to be a grotesque exaggeration of 'life now' in parts of eastern Europe. Maybe it is. Maybe not.

I guess I need to find out.

Well above Parr

Serendipity, the life-enhancing arrival of happy happenstance, keeps on happily happening for Mr Gnome and his human associate.

Along comes an outrageously generous birthday gift (from super-chum RF): a superbly produced large-format book featuring the extraordinary work of the British photographer Martin Parr.

How kind.

A few days later, one finds oneself (as one very occasionally does) in a big city with a few hours to spare before departure for home.

The city was Paris, so I decided to check out the gallery nearest to my friends' apartment; the magnificent Jeu de Paume, on the corner of the Place de la Concorde.

And, as vast amounts of posterage proclaimed, the current show was Planet Parr. One was speechless.

I have to say it is well worth the nine euros entry fee. This is a big, serious show - and there was more on dispaly than I could properly examine in the time available.

Parr's photographs are, well, 'very Martin Parr'. I guess the broad category is documentary. The majority are of people in everyday situations: at home, on a weekend excursion, at the club - or on holiday.

Parr tends to pump up the saturated colour in his images, giving clothes, furntiure, wallpaper and faces a look-at-me prominence. Combined with the seemingly random, unposed compositions, these da-glo pictures can seem borderline freakish.

But, the more you look, the more you realise that you're not being invited to look at 'them'. Parr's eye is essentially compassionate. The invitation is to look at ourselves.

In fact, photographs form only a small part of the show. Vast amounts of space are taken up with images from photographers who infleunced Parr.
And then there is his extraordinary collection of objects: postcards, tea-trays, posters, memorabilia.

Obama's People

Obeying his whim of iron, Mr Gnome made a summer Sunday beeline for Birmingham and allowed Serendipity to do the rest....

His splendid discovery was the highly impressive photographic exhibiiton Obama's People, hosted by that glorious people's palace the Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum.

Following last November's election, the New York Times commissioned photographer Nadav Kander to create a series of portraits of the men and women of the new administration - from the Vice-President to the presidential body-guard.

And here they are, portrayed in big, rather stark images of a remarkably diverse group of people.

Some gaze impassively into the camera, others glance away, a few seem eager to please and one or two have a look of 'Why me?' astonishment.

Curator Rhonda Wilson (of arts company Rhubarb Rhubarb) was on hand to give an engaging talk in which she sketched the series of events which led to this high-profile art show coming not to Washington DC, New York or Paris - but to Birmingham.

(Although she didn't toot her own trumpet, it became pretty apparent that much of the credit for this curatorial coup should go to the energetic Ms Wilson herself.)

The exhibition captures something of the spirit of optimism that powered Obama's journey to the White House.

Let's pray that Obama and his people keep faith with us - and we with them.

Although photography is not allowed in the show, Rhonda kindly agreed to pose beside her favourite portrait - that of 24-year-old Keeper of-the Presidential Contacts Book Eugene Kang.

La Coppola

Mr Gnome, generous to a peccadillo, is keen to 'big up' a splendid addition to the Leamington Spa food firmament.

To be honest, his experience of La Coppola on Regent Street is limited to one winter-evening visit some months ago.

That said, he enjoyed a jolly evening of excellent food and characterful, Italian service.

In addtion, the restaurant's frontage makes a charming, colourful and stylish contribution to the town's streetscape.

Browns study

So regular and enjoyable are Mr Gnome's visits to this buzzingly popular Oxford eatery, that he's astonished to discover he's been blogging for almost two years - and has yet to bestow his accolade upon it.

To be honest, Browns is managing pretty well without any bigging up from Mr G.

In terms of medium-priced eating out, Browns ticks every possible box: a straightforward menu of well-cooked, substantial dishes; attentive, friendly, speedy service; pleasing decor; nice loos - and excellent opportunities for people-watching among the diverse, all-age clientele.

Tonight an elderly gent at next table sported a cherishable Victorian smoking cap.

Mr G reckons that over the last decade he has eaten at Browns roughly five times per year - and the standards of vale and service have been consistent throughout.

With the young, cheerful staff gearing up for this week's graduation onrush, Professor Gnome is delighted to confer a Starred First.

Hurrah!

Worth the wait

Ten years ago I was knocked sideways by Kate Summerscale's extraordinary book The Queen of Whale Cay.

It's the biography of Marion 'Joe' Carstairs (born 1900), champion speedboat racer and spirited 'ruler' of a group of islands in the West Indies. Jo's boundless self-confidence was underpinned by an equally unlimited private income (Standard Oil).

Central to the story is Carstairs' wildly peculiar 'relationship' with an inanimate object - her beloved doll/mascot/alter ego 'Lord Todd Wadley' (on her shoulder above) - creepy at first glance, poignant as the story unfolds.

Intriguing, funny and deliciously outré, the book is a page-turning proof text for 'truth being infinitely stranger than fiction' .

Not surprisingly, Summerscale has taken her time finding another subject for her pen. I'm pleased to report that, ten years on, she has delivered a humdinger.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is a factual account of the shocking event that took place at Road Hill House, Trowbridge, in the summer of 1860: the murder of a child.

But this is much more than a whodunnit.

Through the prism of a family trauma, Summerscale manages to show us a vivid image of a whole turbulent society, where the seemingly powerful bonds of class and family are, in reality, deeply vulnerable.

Romans in the gloaming

To Stratford for the second public performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of William Shakespeare's ever-popular toga-tearer Julius Caesar.

As we enter the auditorium two mud-and-blood-encrusted actors are on stage, exhaustedly stalking each other with the occasional grunt-and-grapple engagement. Then, as the play begins, one pins his rival to the floor and despatches him - with a bite to the neck. Nice.

The show is all of a piece with this initial image. Director Lucy Bailey and her design team conjure up a far-from sunny ancient Italy, where an elegant civilisation seems constantly on the brink of bloody anarchy.

The action is accompanied by a high-volume percussive soundtrack and a series of huge projected images, sadly not clearly visible from our side of the thrust stage.

That fine actor Greg Hicks, in the title role, brilliantly suggests the blinkered self-admiration that has fuelled the seemingly so-reasonable conspiracy hatched by the cool-headed Cassius (excellent John Mackay) and his fellow plotters.

Caesar's line 'Let me have men about me that are fat ... Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much' will probably get laughs. Next to the spectral Hicks, the slender Mackay looks positively chubby.

I guess the play's most challenging role is that of the thoughtful, troubled Brutus (Sam Troughton, above), whose journey charts the terrifying consequences of a decision to do a bad thing for a good reason.

As Mark Antony, the well-fleshed Darren D'Silva, seizes his 'Friends, Romans and countrymen' opportunity with relish, the fickle populace duly u-turning in response to his rhetoric.

With luck, the director will rethink the distracting repertoire of stylised jerk-and-twitch movements assigned to the Roman citizenry.

Criticisms? Shouty moments (plenty of these) are punctuated by occasional passages where one wants to call, 'Speak up, lads.' With luck, these variations in dynamics will even out as the performers settle in to their roles.

Various Voices

Mr Gnome was privileged to visit the recent Various Voices international choral festival at London's South Bank Centre.

A rainbow-hued diversity of ensembles gathered beside the Thames, united by their love of that most joyful of human activities - singing together.

Mr G relished contributions from North America, Holland, Germany, Scotland, England and Ireland.

Special mention to the splendid singers of the Vancouver Men's Chorus, performing outside North America for the very first time. Dashing, dignified, disciplined and gimmick-free - inspiring and uplifting. Hurrah!

Passion

To Symphony Hall, Birmingham, for the annual Good Friday performance of JS Bach's St Matthew Passion.

I'm a bit of a late-arriver as far as Bach is concerned, kept away for years by the assumption that a soft-hearted Puccini-boy such as me would have little in common with this austere northern genius.

Was I wrong!

Attracted by the fact that the Birmingham performance (a) was in the afternoon, (b) to be given in English and (c) would feature a spacious interval for tea and buns, I decided to take a chance on JSB.

That was twelve years ago. With the exception of one year, I've been back for Bach every Good Friday since.

Those first performances were by the London Bach Choir and the English Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Sir David Willcocks, for whom this was an experience of profound devotional, as well as musical. significance. The audience was asked to refrain from applause, the performance beginning and ending in silence.

These days there's clapping but, more importantly for this listener, the text is still given in English.

The Matthew Passion was created to be part of a Good Friday liturgy - it's for a congregation, rather than an audience.

At its heart is the simple delivery of St Matthew's narrative of the final hours of Jesus' life, given in clear, wonderfully expressive 'recitative' (sung speech) by the tenor in the role of the Evangelist.

A bass takes the part of Jesus, his words against the background of strings, providing a kind of musical halo.

The narration is interspersed with many choral passages, giving the onstage choirs the opportunity to take on the role of the crowds, calling for the release of Barabbas, clamoring 'Let him be crucified' and, in a moment of great beauty, offering the Centurion's words: 'Truly this was the Son of God.'

More frequently, though, the choral passages simply invite the hearer to a personal meditation on the significance of the events being played out. This invitation is extended further in six or seven 'chorales' (hymns) in which the original hearers would have joined.

Similar passages for the solo singers continue the theme of transferring these external events to the inner, spiritual world of the individual listener.

For me, the most powerful moment of the entire piece comes immediately after the words 'and he gave up his spirit' and before the opening of the hushed opening of the chorale 'Be near me, Lord, when dying': a silence - long, spacious, profound.

The work's extraordinary power is linked to this constant connecting of the outer with the inner world. History connects with my story. And every time I hear the Matthew Passion, new connections emerge, I discover new aspects. I'm always surprised.

Created for ordinary churchgoers (which meant the whole community), the St Matthew Passion is remains accessible, powerful and beautiful - and popular. I'll be back next year.

The Winter's Tale

Can one have too much of a good thing?

The new RSC production of Shakespeare's strange and entrancing The Winter's Tale was not my first experience of the play. I've seen at least half a dozen varied stagings over the years, stretching back to the celebrated 1969 show in which Judi Dench played both the wronged queen Hermione and her 'lost' daughter Perdita.

Then, only just over two years ago, there was Dominic Cooke's daring staging in the tiny Swan Theatre, with actors and audience sharing the performance space, creating a sense of truth and immediacy, and reducing many to tears during the extraordinary twenty minutes at the end of the play.

For this production, director David Farr and his design team have had a 'big idea'. The play opens in the chilly court of King Leontes, the stage dominated by two towering, packed, bookcases. Hmm. Symbolism?

The first half of the play is almost unbearably tragic. Taken by a bolt-from-the-blue fit of jealousy, uptight Leontes (Greg Hicks) is convinced his hugely pregnant wife Hermione (Kelly Hunter) is about to give birth to the child of his best friend.

Cue a grotesque 'trial' in which the wronged wife nobly defends herself, dressed in the bloodied nightgown of her recent delivery. As the news arrives of the unexpected death of her and Leontes' first child, she falls to the ground, presumably dead.

Meanwhile, at Leontes' orders, the newborn child is being conveyed out of the kingdom and abandoned, prior to rescue by, you've guessed, a kindly shepherd.

Not surprisingly, these seemingly chaotic events take place against the background of a massive storm. At its height, the bookcases tilt giddily forward, spilling all their contents onto the stage as a violent gust of wind deposits a few reams of printed papers among the scattered volumes.

A thrillingly huge bear, made entirely of flapping sheets of paper, emerges for the unlucky baby-carrier to 'exit pursued by'. Are we getting the metaphor?

A twenty-minute interval zooms us forward by sixteen years - to the pastoral scenes in which we follow the story of Perdita, the 'lost' princess. The booky theme continues with paper trees and, most memorably, in the 'exploded book' costumes of the very rude sheepshearing dancers.

It's hard to gauge if the director intends all of the consequences of having so much paper under foot - and frequently stuck to foot. Funny at times, but I felt for the actors in the sublime final scene, speaking the verse to the accompaniment of A4 scrunching beneath shoe.

And yet, thanks to the clear, heartfelt performances of the actors, the 'concepty' staging didn't over-distract. And once again the magical, epiphanic final scene delivered its message of grace and truth with power and breath-stopping beauty.

Here's Michael Billington's review in The Guardian and, from the Telegraph, Charles Spencer's.

Hot

High on Mr Gnome's list of Desert Island films is Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot.

It's one of those rare works of art where all the elements - script, casting, photography - come together with zinging, can't-imagine-it-otherwise perfection.

Small-time Chicago bandsmen (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) find themselves needing to get out of town fast having been spotted by the Mob while witnessing the St Valentine's Day Massacre.

Cue the comic set-up that drives the plot - Joe and Jerry transform themselves into Josephine and Geraldine to join an elite all-female combo: Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators.

Enter down-on-luck vocalist Sugar Kane (the touchingly incandescant Marilyn Monroe) and Joe and Jerry are falling over each other to gain her attention.

So far, so farcical.

What sets this film in a class of its own is Wilder's teasingly sophisticated take on the cross-dressing theme.

In particular, as the film progresses something weird, worrying and very funny starts to happen to Jack Lemmon's Geraldine. Fifty years on, his journey still seems transgressive and loopily subversive - it's about so much more than a bloke in a frock.

The film is packed with glorious moments: the scene in the sleeping compartment, the bowtie-twanging bell-hop, the bicycle gags and the incomparable Joe E Brown as the millionaire with the hots for Geraldine ('Zowie!').

And, of course, it's Brown who gets to utter the film's glorious, shining, immortal final line.

Sublime.